Binoculars
by neon rose
Summary: Kid Flash needs a break and Jinx needs a new life, if only stupid red-headed boys would stop bothering her she might actually be able to get over the catastrophy that was hers and Kid Flash's short lived relationship.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: hey, sorry I've not been writing lately everyone but here's a new story that I've been playing with in my head for a while. It's mostly inspired by the music I've been listening to lately. I've also been thinking about playing with other styles of writing and so this fic is going to be entirely in Jinx and Kid Flash's point of view. I really hope I've gotten into their heads properly, if any of you feel like I should be writing them a little differently then please drop me a review and let me know, I'm new to this style so all the pointers I can get would be awesome. Anyway, enjoy!

_There's only one clock in this room,_

_And it's broken_

_Well there's only one heart in this room,_

_And it's stuck at one 'o'clock_

_-Julia Nunes, One clock_

**Jinx**

I've always been different, there's not a single time in my life that I can remember when I've not known that fact, there's the rest of the world and then there's me. Alone. Different. And as anyone who's different will readily tell you, it's one thing to be different and know it yourself, it's quite another to have the rest of the world know just by looking at you. Unfortunately that's the case for me, pink hair, pink eyes, catlike pupils, grey skin, I'm hardly the picture of normality am I? I think if I had to be honest about why I chose the path I did in life I'd say that it would be because I was different and because everyone knew it. My powers made me dangerous and my looks made me weird, people would just _look_ at me all the time, no one ever respected me, ever saw me for me. And then I learnt pretty quickly that it's much easier to _make_ people fear you than respect you, and with my powers who could argue?

My team was made up of people who at the HIVE academy it had benefited me to be with and vice versa, Mammoth was my strongman, Gizmo was our technical expert, Kyd Wykkyd was both a decent psychic and a handy getaway man provided there were enough shadows about for him to work with, See-More helped us with tracking things and with absolutely no pun intended, keeping an eye out. Billy was… well, Billy. He was incredibly useful for those moments when skill wasn't what was needed but when sheer numbers and force were required, he played the odds and did it well, they say if you left a thousand monkeys in a room with typewriters for eternity one of them would eventually type the complete works of Shakespeare. Billy was essentially an unlimited number of monkeys in a finite time, give the boy five minutes and a billion safes and he'd crack at least a few just by brute force attack. And me? I was the firepower, I was the brains of the operation, I was the leader, I had the skills to pay the bills so to speak. I'd thought at one time that those people were more than just a convenience to me, that they were maybe not friends but something close. I was wrong. But nonetheless they respected me, or feared me. I was never quite sure. Possibly a little of both.

I respected Rouge, of course I feared her too but I genuinely did respect her. She was everything I could have been, she was powerful, and I thought at least she was genuinely respected by more people than just me, people feared her name, no one stood in the streets and gawped at her or at least they didn't do it for long. I'd wanted to be like her for so long, to have what she had that when I met her in person she was such a let down. She was nasty and petty and bossy, she didn't see in me what I'd hoped for her to see, she didn't tell me that yes, she too had once been like me, that she knew how hard it was, that I could be like her. And I never wanted to go down that road again, because I knew that if I kept going like I had done, muscling my way into people's lives and making them fear rather than respect me because I thought the two were interchangeable then I'd end up just like her. Old. Bitter. And, if I'm honest, kind of ugly. And talk about stretch marks, eesh.

Of course as much as it pains me now to think about it _he_ had a big part in that. Telling me that I was better than her, better than my team, better than what I was doing. I shouldn't have listened, I should have just ignored him. That's what I wish at least, I wish I could just think that I'd have been so much better of if I'd not met him, but I know it's not the case. He saved my life. And I hate him for it.

"Hey." Raven says from my door. I look up and she's standing there, from the look on her face I've clearly been sitting on my bed spaced out for quite a while and didn't even notice her.

"I knocked but…" She starts sounding slightly uncomfortable, she's so protective of her own space that she really dislikes invading anyone else's.

"It's cool." I smile motioning her over to my bed.

"So… Starfire's pestering me relentlessly about going out to the movies, I was hoping you'd save me the horror." Raven says in that very flat voice of hers as she makes her way over to me. I grin, Starfire seems oblivious sometimes but I think she's really just more perceptive than most and has skin a little thicker than most too. She knows Raven likes her and doesn't let her grumpiness and solitary preferences dissuade her from that sentiment, which is good because Raven needs Starfire's infectious happiness sometimes.

"What does she have in mind?" I ask pulling my knees up to my chest to allow Raven to sit on my bed.

"Some chick flick." She groans slumping down on my bed.

"Gag." I grin at her.

"Agreed." Raven grins slightly at the ceiling.

"Still, it's better than sitting about doing nothing all evening." I shrug. Raven shoots me a look that tells me quite clearly that she very definitely disagrees with me there.

"You know, since you moved in she's been much more insistent about these girl outings. Before it was just me she was trying to persuade but now it's suddenly this 'us' idea that she's got. Like she wants me to paint toenails with her." Raven complains looking at me out of the corner of her eye. I bite my lip. I should tell her.

"She'd actually probably really like that. You should offer sometime." I say instead. _Chicken_ I think to myself.

"There are worse things." I point out reasonably. That's who I am now. The reasonable one, the mediator. Starfire's mood is high as a kite most of the time, full with loving affection for everyone and everything where Raven is solitary, grumpy and complicated. I've become the one who rationally persuades Raven to some of Starfire's more tolerable ideas and the one who stops Star from blurting ideas out to Raven that will just irk her. I've become the normal one, the sane one. Dear god, how screwed up does that make this place if someone like me is the _normal_ one?

I should really say something. How will she take it though?

"Just because I'd rather cut off my leg than my head doesn't mean I should do it." Raven snorts in response to me.

"I want to move out." I blurt suddenly. I clap my hand over my mouth but the words have already come out, I suddenly retract my previous mental opinion, I really shouldn't have said something. Raven frowns and props herself up on her elbows to look at me piercingly. I know the girl gets a bit of a vibe off emotions if she focuses or if it's strong but she can't read minds, but no matter how often I tell myself that when she looks at me like that I don't believe it. It's become something of a mental mantra when I get that look. _She can't read minds, she can't read minds._ I repeat diligently.

"Will you stay if I agree to paint your toenails?" She asks deadpan as she arches a perfect brow.

"Har har." I say rolling my eyes.

"You're serious aren't you?" She says leaning up fully and looking at me quizzically.

"Yeah." I mumble staring down at the toes of my purple and black striped tights, the fabric has worn thin on my big toe, I pull at it in an attempt to distract myself from that look. _She can't read minds._ I repeat again for good measure.

"Why? Is it Beast Boy because, you know, we all have to put up with him. You can sort of tune him out after a while, like white noise. Cyborg's good at that. He's not that bad really." She runs on longer than she needs to. I laugh at this, Beast Boy can be annoying but it's hard to be mad at him, he's too much like a little kid. I don't appreciate his jokes but that's more because of the memory of _him_ and that's not Beast Boy's fault.

"Well, why then? I thought you liked it here." Uh oh. This is just what I didn't want. She's taking it personally, she's going to think that I've been secretly hating living with her and living in the tower.

"I _do_." I insist.

"But?" Raven prompts clearly unsatisfied with this as an answer.

"You lot were a team before I got here, and don't worry, I still want to be a Titan, I just feel like it's you five and me. I'm an outsider." I explain with a sigh. Raven seems to process this for a second, I'm hoping it's an explanation she'll swallow, she knows what it's like to be an outsider, to want her own space.

"That's crap." She says irritatedly. I groan dejectedly. Why is she so damned attentive? She knows I've fitted in just fine here, Robin made every effort to make it so, probably as some half-hearted attempt to make up for his best friend's wrongs.

"This is just because of him isn't it?" Raven snaps annoyed with me.

"I…" I falter at that. I really don't want to talk about this, I feel so weak when I do. But if it'll get Raven to understand why I need to leave, why I just cannot be here then maybe I have to.

"I'm only here because of him." I mumble unhappy about her being able to drag this out of me, then again Raven always was good at dragging my problems out of me, especially ones to do with _him_. She's heard more than enough over these past two months about _him_. I look up but Raven's still silent and wearing that face that says that she'd not going to participate in this conversation again until she's satisfied that I've spat everything out.

"I'm here because he brought me here, I stayed to prove him wrong, I'm a Titan because he pulled some strings with Robin. None of this is just me." I sigh leaning back on my headboard. I feel like I've thrown up, all weak and hollow.

"I don't see why you're letting him rule your life. He's not even here, he's not shown his face since he ditched you at our doorstep to just-" Raven stops suddenly as she sees me wince. She knows that's a sore subject.

"You want to do things for yourself, I get that. But don't you see that just moving because he's been responsible for everything else is just as much an action motivated by him as everything else?" Raven points out logically. I glare. I hate her logic.

"I don't care. It'll feel like my decision. I just want to be somewhere that he was never going to be, that he never should have been." I retort. That's the one thing I hate about the Tower. He should have been here with me. Everywhere I go I see things, things that should have been memories spring unbidden from every space, from every moment. Except they're not memories, they're fantasies of how things should have gone. I have breakfast and see us sitting close together over a book or a paper laughing and talking quietly, I watch TV with the others and feel where his arm should have been around me as he radiated that incredible heat from his body, I feel it as it almost burns my skin and how its lack freezes me. I sit on my bed and see… see things that are now far too painful to think of.

"You're letting him rule you. And he's not even _here_." Raven sniffs indignantly.

"I know." I concede because it's easier.

"You're going to have to get approval from Robin you know, and he's going to have to construct you a fake ID." Raven points out her voice still showing hints of that irritation.

"I know." I repeat soothingly. Raven falls silent and glares at the floor. I've hurt her, made her mad at me.

"I'll still be here, I'll hang out, I'll see you. I'll do stuff with you and Star, I'll stop her being so… Starfire like." I say reassuringly as I reach out and brush her shoulder through her cloak. I feel her stiffen immediately and then react slightly. She feels abandoned, I certainly know how that feels.

"I think there's that really cheesy zombie movie on at the midnight showing, I might be able to convince Star to come see that with us, tell her it's an important part of our culture that she must experience." I say sweetly. Raven chuckles at this and suddenly we're friends again.

"You're on." She says standing up suddenly and leaving my room with a small smile and a wave. I wave back and the door closes automatically after her.

I lean forward again and rest my elbows on my knees and stare intently at the swirly pattern on my duvet, it's hypnotising if you look at it for a while. It seems to help me think. Raven's right of course, leaving is just as much about him as everything else seems to be. But I just want a clean break. I look over at my clock, it's ten to four in the afternoon, though it's still dark in my room as my thick purple curtains are drawn. I nod my head and resolve that I will not think about this any longer than ten minutes. Come four 'o'clock I will be thinking of something, anything else.

I close my eyes and allow myself to think of him, I've been trying to limit how much time I spend doing this, it's the only way I can ever get over him. So ten minutes is OK.

The first thing that comes to my mind as always is that smiling face of his, shining cheeky blue eyes, that red hair that was streaked with gold, beautiful skin and perfect lips bent like cupid's bow. I hate myself a little there, several months ago I would never have conceived myself capable of thinking such sappy thoughts about anyone. But then he isn't just anyone. He's… Kid Flash, since I'm already allowing myself to think about him I suppose I can think his name now without fear of the thoughts that come tumbling after.

He was… perfect. He was funny and charming, so very very charming. He told me everything that I needed to hear at that time, though it came at such a shock _'You don't have to hurt people to feel good about yourself you know.'_ He'd said. And I'd practically gawped at that, because, duh, of course you do. Because if you didn't hurt people then they didn't respect you, they made you feel bad, and logically if not hurting people made them make you feel bad then surely hurting them would reverse that, hurting people would clearly make me feel good. It was just logical. Of course it wasn't as simple as that, although that logic was hardly simple… more… convoluted. He'd told me quite simply that helping people made you feel good. He told me lots of things, he told me that I was so much better than the life I was leading, he gave me the courage to follow him out of it. Follow him to a better place, to the life I have now. And I love being a Titan so much, people actually respect me now, for a while I was talk of the town, was it a big hoax on my part or not, was a still a bad girl under it all and so on. But after my very spotless performance these past two months the public have warmed to me considerably. I remember Robin explaining it to me with a wry smile, he said that aside from kicking people when they're down the one thing the media loves most is a good story, and the reformed villain seeing the error of her ways is high up on the list. Good beating evil after all is what everyone wants to hear, and I'm living proof, that internal war waged and judging from my current hero career I guess you could say that good won. As if my life was just some fairy tale or soap story to them, of course the speculation in the press about Kid Flash was huge and… painful. He was the one who'd arranged for the big announcement for me to be made and his sudden disappearance was painfully obvious, and my reaction to it instantly clued everyone into what had happened.

And of course it reads like a soap opera, boy meets bad girl, turns her good and at the very public pinnacle of her reform leaves her at the alter of heroism so to speak. The tragic crushed love only added fuel to the fire of speculation. Did he get kidnapped by bad guys as vengeance? Was there another girl off on the sidelines? And is said girl any number of heroines about, everyone from Argent to Supergirl was considered, along with the girls in both Titan's east and west. Did he suddenly fall prey to some sudden illness or accident? Speculation is the fondest habit of the press, none of these scenarios are ones that I'd not already considered of course.

It was Raven who finally had the guts to break it to me that the other girl option was the most likely of situations to be true, and having talked to other Titans his reputation for flitting from girl to girl precedes him. I wish someone would have told me before I got involved with him. Boys should really come with a warning stamped on them. Past girlfriends should be able to write on them, things like 'snores in bed' or 'cheated on me' 'cheated on me too!' 'and me!' would be really helpful when you see a guy. To know which ones should be steered well clear of. Apparently Kid Flash should have come with 'relationship expires quickly' and 'runs out on you' warnings, something describing how hard and fast he makes you fall for him would have been really useful too. But of course it isn't like that, we just have to guess and take a chance. And I took that chance, that leap with him, after all I'd already trusted him with my entire career and life what else was it to risk my heart? Apparently it was too much and I ended up abandoned and humiliated.

My eyes are leaking hot angry tears now, I'm so mad that he let me down. It's not just that I'm pissed because we're not together anymore, I'm aching inside because he didn't even have the spine to tell me it was over or why. One day its gentle kisses and sweet nothings and the next day he's gone for good without a word of goodbye. And I find myself always questioning myself, guessing and agonising over what it was that went wrong, what on earth did I say or do that made him back off so much so fast? And it had to be that because if it had been anything else we would have had word now. If he were uncovering some secret evil plot he would have called Robin and I know he hasn't. I had to apologise to Robin after the first month of asking him every day if he'd heard anything from him, I don't ask any more but I know that Robin would tell me the moment he heard anything. They're best friends but I think that even Robin gets fed up with him being so flakey sometimes. I remember him catching me one day in the hallway stifling tears because some stupid thing had reminded me of him and it was once again all too much, he'd come up to me in that ninja silent way that he does and put his hand awkwardly on my shoulder and said that he was really sorry for everything that had happened. I told him that it was hardly his fault but he seemed annoyed and angry at himself all the same. I still wonder how many other girls he's seen Kid Flash do this to and what Robin thinks of it.

I roughly dry my eyes and stare at the clock, it's five past four now. I went over time. Damn.

Later that afternoon I knock on Robin's door and let myself in when I hear his voice through the door asking who it is.

"Hi." I say letting myself in.

"Hi." Robin responds stoically as he leans back on his chair and looks at me in that Robin way that analyses you totally. I wonder if he's trying to work out if I've been crying recently and ergo whether I'm a ticking time bomb. I hate being like this, I hate people looking at me like that, like they expect me to just fall apart any second, I hate people thinking I'm fragile. But then again I am right now, that's part of the thing with having all your internal walls ripped down, usually people break you down and then build you up again, not leave you halfway through with no defences and weak to everything.

"I want to move out." I blurt again. I squeeze my eyes together and curse myself for that, that was supposed to be more subtle the second time around. I open my eyes, Robin's frowning at me.

"You're not happy here?" He asks in a measured voice. He thinks I'm trying to quit the team, possibly even go back to being a villain, I can see him mentally calculating how much I know, how much he's taught me and how dangerous I'd be back on the other side of the fence again.

"No… I want my own place. I still want to be on the team though, if you'll still have me of course." I add carefully, Robin seems to relax ever so slightly.

"So… you're not happy here then?" He repeats although this time both of us know the question means what it says.

"Well, yes and no." I answer honestly as I sit down on the foot of his bed which is right near his desk, "I like being here, I love the team. I like hanging out here. I just… need some space of my own. I need…" I trail off and try to will him with my eyes to understand that I need to be somewhere where the memory of _him_ doesn't linger at every inch.

"You need some normalcy." Robin finishes for me. My eyes widen, this isn't quite what I'd been thinking of but then it suddenly sounds so good. Robin is the only one of us with a secret identity, the only one of us with the ability to choose to just walk out of the building and blend into the crowd and just be a normal teenager whenever he wants. Of course he doesn't but still he has that choice. Suddenly I'm so jealous of him and want that, the ability to not be someone on display, to be someone who people speculate about, to instead just be a face in the street.

"Yes." I say sounding a little too relieved.

"A secret identity is a lot of work you know, it's time consuming maintaining it." Robin frowns at me as if he thinks I can't deal with it. I bite back the response that I never see him doing much to maintain his alter-ago.

"I know that." I say instead.

"I don't think you do." He says shaking his head at me. Suddenly I have the urge to hex him. I suppress it, I don't hex people when I think they're not giving me the right amount of respect anymore. I miss it sometimes, I get mad I hex, it was instant relief from idiocy. Now I just have to put up with it. _His_ words about hurting people sneak back into my head. I banish them, I'm not thinking about _him_ anymore.

"I took classes on cracking secret identities remember? I know all the mistakes that people make and exactly what the bad guys do to expose you, I know all the tricks in the book. I know exactly what _not_ to do. Believe me I know." I reply firmly. He smirks at this, he sometimes really likes having my knowledge of the other side of the heroism/villainy coin, I can recognise patterns of crimes in different ways to him, I know how my old side think, I know how they work. I was one of the best after all.

"I'll look into the practicalities of things. You're gonna need your communicator on you at all times still, but obviously it can't be seen. I'll see about incorporating it into a phone or something… watch maybe…" He muses clearly already running through plans in his mind.

"And identity stuff?" I prompt hopefully.

"Child's play. You'll need to see Cyborg at some point if we decide you can do this, he can make you blend in." Robin says waving a hand dismissively at the idea.

"Yes, I remember." I say flatly. I still remember Cyborg conning all of us at the HIVE academy, and if I'll be honest I had a little something of a crush on him, apparently I've always had a thing for heroes. Thankfully no such feelings have resurfaced here but I'm still a little touchy about someone pulling the wool over my eyes. If Robin notices my tone he doesn't say anything, he's already murmuring about compatibility and configurations and I can tell that he and Cyborg are going to have a ball, they always do when gadgets are concerned. I feel a pang and miss Gizmo slightly, the kid was annoying but alright when he wanted to be, smart too which is something I always appreciate.

"I'll… let you get on with that then." I say apparently to myself as Robin doesn't even notice me stand and make my way over to the door. My finger is just hovering above the button when the door bursts open and I feel like I've been hit by a train and I'm landing painfully on the floor before I even have time to remember how to fall correctly. I skin my elbow and I just manage to stop my head cracking on the floor but still it's a second or two before my eyes manage to focus on the face that's far too close to mine. He pushes himself up on his arms and looks down at me.

That face, those eyes, that smile and that laugh, that red hair streaked with gold, that perfect skin, those lips forming into a perfect upward curve. It's _him_, here, on top of me with his long lean legs tangled up with mine.

"Jinx!" I can't even make my brain coherent enough to work out what emotion that is in his voice. My brain is so consumed with rage. My fist balls instantly and in a split second hex energy is coursing through my body and like a whiplash I punch him straight in the ribs, hard. I hope it hurts.

"YOU!" I scream insanely as I scramble to my knees and make to lunge at him, I think I'll claw his eyes out, on the other hand punching him again seems like a really good idea. I raise my fist and hear the air crackle around it when Robin grabs my arm with one hand and the back of my spider's web collar and hauls me to my feet.

"You BASTARD! What the hell are you doing back here?! Do you even CARE about what you did to me?!" I scream at Kid Flash as he lays stunned and dazed on the floor.

"Jinx- I… that's not-" he stammers at me, I'm just starting to scream again when Robin half throws me out of his door.

"I need to talk to him. Alone." Robin says by way of explanation and closes the door. I scream harpie-like at the steel thing before storming off before I kill some poor hapless passer by, or better yet Kid Flash, but I know Robin wouldn't appreciate that.

I'll miss your smile,

And your haircuts

I miss your style,

Even though it's nuts.

And every day that I'm away,

I miss you more than the day before

-Julia Nunes, One clock

Kid Flash

"You have one minute to explain yourself." Robin says in that voice that says I'm in major trouble. I'm lying on the floor still and Robin folds his arms over his traffic light coloured uniform and looks down at me angrily. I sit up feeling numb and start explaining everything at a million miles an hour, there's no way I can get the whole thing out in under a minute with Robin still able to understand me but I manage to get the important things out, the things that will make Robin listen to me. I say the words and see the change in Robin's face. I try not to think about it, I stare at my red booted feet, I count to one hundred in my head forwards and then backwards, I try to keep everything inside my head and not think about the words I'm saying because I really need to keep it together.

At some point I realise that my mouth has stopped moving. I must have finished talking. I look up at Robin and he's looking down at me somewhat despairingly, the look that says that he gets why I've done what I've done but still is annoyed with me all the same. That mixture of pity, understanding and disapproval all rolled into one horrible look that I really hate being given.

"You should have called." He says to me. Right, like I'd want to do that.

"It wasn't exactly top of my list of things to do." I say sourly. Robin sighs at this and gives me that look again.

"I get that, I do. But we could have helped you, I could have helped you." He clarifies, "at the very least I could have been forewarned to stop Jinx attacking you like that." He adds.

I rub the sore spot on my ribs, it feels like my muscles underneath are burning and spasming when I touch it. I try not to think of it now, I try not to think of her face when she lunged at me. I squeeze my eyes shut and see it anyway, brightly glowing furious eyes, her face contorted with rage and hatred, the air around her sparking off randomly with her bad luck powers, and of course that punch. It was hardly the welcome back I was expecting. It really doesn't help at moments like this when you see things in such high speed that you remember everything in perfect detail.

"She'll understand you know." Robin says looking at me. My eyes widen at that, there's no way I'm telling Jinx, there's absolutely no way at all that she and I will be having that conversation. Not in this lifetime.

"I don't want her to know." I say shaking my head at him.

"What?!" Robin splutters staring at me with eyes as wide as saucers, "But- you can't not tell her!"

I can too not tell her and I can also demand that you not tell her either! In fact… don't tell anyone." I snap angrily.

"You really hurt her you know. She hates you now, you know that right? If you don't explain…" He says quietly to me, I wince at this, that much is obvious from her reaction.

"Maybe I'll explain later, I just… I really can't now. I can't." I mumble staring down at my feet and feeling small.

"How do you even say something like that to someone anyway? I know how she'll look at me when I tell her and I can't stand it, I can't stand having anyone look at me like that. You're the only person I can tell, you don't react like everyone else does." I laugh bitterly.

"Gee. Thanks." Robin snorts sitting down in his office chair, I throw him a look like, _I didn't mean it like that you dork_.

"I understand, I won't tell anyone. I promise." He adds with a weary sigh. He clearly doesn't want to make this promise but he's doing it anyway, for our friendship, for me. I feel slightly touched at that.

"Thanks Rob." I smile at him, his face hardens suddenly.

"I'm not saying I agree, because I don't. At all. But… I do understand, and I know you, you'd never intentionally hurt someone. You're welcome to stay here with us for as long as you want, I can't promise Jinx will be fantastically nice to you, and I wouldn't advise staying here with her. She's still living here and I don't think it'd be a great idea to have you both under one roof." He says sternly, I smile a little despite myself, he suddenly looks a lot like Batman.

"Worried about what Jinx and I'll do to each other?" I grin at him teasingly.

"No, I'm worried about my roof." He shoots back at me snarkily. I grin back at him, it feels good being here with him, talking, joking. It feels normal and normal is really good right now.

"It's cool, I've still got my old place anyway. I liked Jump, I'd really like to stay here rather than go back to Star city." I agree, it's probably not best for me to stay here all the time anyway, goodness knows Jinx always needed to her space and if her recent reaction to me is any indicator of how she feels about me then I'm sure it's for the best. Robin doesn't say anything but gives me one of those scrutinising looks that's oh-so-very Batman.

"Okay, well… I've got stuff to move back into my place here. I should probably be making myself scarce anyway, and probably getting this rib checked out." I say standing up and making my excuses to leave. In less than a second or two I'm already back at my apartment. I sort of lied about needing to move stuff back into here, the whole place is exactly as it was the morning I left. My breakfast is still on the table, or what was my breakfast two months ago anyway, ew. I empty it into the trash and try and clean up the place so I don't have to think about Jinx lunging at me and how much she clearly hates me.


	2. Chapter 2

_But I don't know what I was expecting to find,_

_Am I loosing my mind? Or just biding my time?_

_Maybe I won't, maybe I Will_

-Julia Nunes, Maybe I will

Jinx

I stomp my way into Raven's room, she and Starfire are already there waiting with the door open for me, clearly they saw Kid Flash as he ran in and figured I'd need them and that this would be the first place that I would go, a part of me thinks that they're really great friends for this, on the other hand I'm so massively mad that I can hardly think at all.

"BASTARD!" I shout as I enter the room furiously. Raven and Starfire exchange a look that says, _yep, she saw him._

"What did he say to you?" Raven asks with her hand on my shoulder, from the pressure I can feel she clearly wants me to sit down and calm down but I'm having none of it.

"How DARE he think that he can just waltz back into my life and look at me like that, and think that things can be okay?! Does he even CARE about what he did to me? About what he put me through? How can he even show his FACE?!" I scream pacing back and forth.

"Is that… what he said?" Starfire asks quietly to Raven who rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

"But what did he actually say to you?" Raven says psychically sweeping my legs out from under me and planting me down on her bed.

"I… didn't give him a chance to say anything." I murmur looking away uncomfortably. My rage is subsiding now and leaving me feeling nasty and sick inside.

"You just ran away before he could speak?" Starfire blinks her big green eyes at me in surprise.

"No! I punched him first." I say poutily. I can almost feel the physical waves of Raven's disapproval running off of her at that answer.

"So let me get this straight," She says pinching the bridge of her nose with her eyes shut tight as if to shut out my stupid words, "you've been _agonising_ for months over why he left, trying to figure out from every little nuance of every word he ever said to you why he did that, and when he finally shows up… instead of demanding an explanation from him… you punch him and run away?"

"No… Robin threw me out. I wanted to stay there, and hit him some more… and maybe then demand about why he left." I mutter unhappily.

"You're an idiot. You need to talk to him, just get some closure, find out why he left. Isn't that what you want?" Raven sighs at me.

"I don't want to talk to him. Ever." I emphasise the ever part. I stare down at my boots and focus on surreptitiously scuffing marks on the frame of Raven's bed, that'll teach her for being mean about this whole thing, she was supposed to be understanding.

"You're not making any sense, you've been wanting to talk to him the whole time you've been here!" Raven shouts angrily.

"Well I don't now!" I shout back, my eyes filling with tears. Starfire spots this and grabs me into her arms and pulls me into her lap and gives me one of those hugs that is so tight you probably couldn't escape but yet not tight enough to pop your vertebrae out of joint. I realise slowly that I'm crying into her purple top, she's rubbing my back soothingly like a little kid.

"What if we're right?" I choke out, "What if he admits it was some other girl and he just _ditched _me?" I sob. I don't think I could handle that, that knowledge. I'd agonise over it, I know myself, what was she like? Why was she so much better than me? What did I do so wrong to make him stray so fast? Was she prettier than me? Is it still going on?

I continue crying and I feel the creak as Raven sits down on the bed and awkwardly pats my arm with hands so cold I can feel the chill through my shirt.

"ACK!" Raven yelps suddenly as she leaps up.

"My bed's on fire!" She exclaims, Starfire and I jump back at this and sure enough where I was kneeling has caught fire, it's only a few small flames at the moment with charred patterns matching the shape of my legs. My hex powers must have been sparking off without me noticing, I look down to see that my tights have melted too.

"Throw a blanket on it!" Starfire squeaks startled.

"That IS her blanket!" I shout panicked, I don't want to touch anything for fear of starting more fires. Raven rolls her eyes at us and encases the now floating blanket in an airtight black ball of her powers, the fire quickly extinguishes itself. She holds it there a little longer to make sure they won't just spring back alight when she lets them go. Eventually they drop into her hands and she examines them with her mouth a downward line. She doesn't have to say anything but I can see it, she really liked those and I've ruined them, for reasons of tact I can see she doesn't want to say so now but I know.

"I'll buy you new ones. I'm really sorry." I mumble unhappily, it seems I can't do anything right today. My stress levels rise again and sparks crackle between my fingers.

"I've broken much more expensive things myself." Raven sighs, this is her way of saying it's okay, that we all make mistakes, that she's not mad at me. Not that Raven could ever say that, but I understand what she means.

"Talk to him, not knowing is worse." Raven commands as she holds to door open for Starfire and us to leave, not that we were intending to but now apparently we must. The giant red flashing alarm makes me jump as it always does, the jewel around my neck glows on and off softly along with Raven's cloak clasp and Starfire's gem in the centrepiece of her silver neck plate. We don't say anything else as we run off to our duty, but we're all wondering the same thing, will _he_ be there?

_Did you leave something behind?_

_Looked like nothing at the time,_

_Now you fear that it's too late,_

-Julia Nunes, Maybe I will

Kid Flash

I'm sitting on my bed feeling sorry for myself when my communicator buzzes in that distinct pattern that indicates a job rather than a call, I sigh and look at my ring, it's glowing slightly on and off. I press it and my uniform decompresses and flings itself out of the impossibly small space. Making sure I'm out of view of my open windows I blur into my uniform before the cloth even hits the floor, I briefly check the location and run there as fast as I can.

"Oh good, I could use something to take my anger out on." Jinx's pleased voice floats up to my ears as I lie in wait on the rooftop near them. I peek over the edge to see her advancing centrally on Cinderblock, Robin short behind her with Starfire readying glowing starbolts, Raven and Cyborg are sheparding away innocent bystanders and a piercing squawk in the distance alerts me to the fact that Beast Boy isn't far away and is surveying the terrain.

I watch as Jinx hurls herself at Cinderblock throwing hexes left and right in an apparently random manner, she lands on the other side of him as if this were a movie showdown, she straightens and Cinderblock is realising that nothing has happened to him, just as the realisation dawns on his big dumb face two power lines and the attached poles creak dangerously and fall around him ensnaring him in their electric cables. I bite my lip, that is so awesome and kind of hot too. I shake my head and move away from the edge of the wall, I need to think of some way to show up and make sure Jinx feels something for me that isn't, you know, hatred. Maybe if I can put her in a good frame of mind she'll listen to my apology and not try to kill me or something. I inch back over to the edge of the roof and look down, I kick into high speed to watch the fight, Jinx is jumping at the escaped Cinderblock, Robin has a birdarang around his neck, the cord to it tight in his hand in an attempt to pull Cinderblock down onto the ground. Jinx twisted catlike in the air and flicked her leg out so her heel caught Cinderblock right in the jaw, if he could really be able to be said to have one that is. The kick connects and Cinderblock is knocked off of balance, as Jinx is springing backwards though he manages to swipe at her, the blow only just clips her but sends her falling back uncontrolled.

I gasped, that was it, that was my chance. I suddenly leapt up and jumped off of the edge of the building and used my speed to zoom down the side of the building, as I breezed by I watched as Robin turned catlike in midair to dodge Cinderblock's sweeping arm, this fascinated me until I came to where Jinx was tumbling backwards. I opened my arms willingly and waited expectantly for her to fall back onto me. I smiled as she moulded into my arms, her head tipped back to look up at me, her lips parted temptingly.

"Hi" I smiled down at her. I watched as several expressions flitted across her face before me, surprise, shock, anger, hatred.

"Get off of me!" she hisses at me, her arm jerks against me pushing me away as she straightens up on her own.

"I just-" I try desperately, "I wanted to help." Surely she can understand that right? I want to help, I care about her, I don't want her to hurt herself.

"I don't _need_ you or your help." She says haughtily as she turns her back on me.

"I didn't say you did, I just want to help out." I say reasonably, she glares at me angrily over her shoulder before running off at Cinderblock again and landing a flurry of punches and kicks that I'm suddenly very glad are not directed my way this time. Cinderblock stumbles backwards with Jinx's hand still dug into one of his empty cement eye sockets and her other hexing him mercilessly, he sways very obviously and keels backwards. Jinx decides to start kicking him in the face, Robin steps forward, his face etched with worry.

"Jinx!" He calls, she takes no notice. A feral sound escapes her lips and waves of pink come off of her.

"Jinx! He's out cold!" Robin shouts at her, this time she snaps up startled before looking down at Cinderblock then at me and back again. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as she jumps off the fallen body of Cinderblock and makes her way over to me, she clearly wishes that that was me there and not him.

"Sorry." She mumbles to Robin, he smiles a soothing smile at her and Raven walks over and touches Jinx on the back, I feel jealous and suddenly notice that her knuckles are bleeding. I want to take them in my hands and make her all better, to wash her wounds clean and take care of her. I wince at this, she'd probably rather die than let me do that now, not that she was one to take being looked after in the first place. I remember she was always very hyper aware of being self-sufficient, it was a miracle that she ever accepted my help to get to where she is now, I'm happy that she did that at least.

"So… pizza?" Robin says breaking the obviously very tense silence.

"Sure." Jinx says her voice light but her face stern as she looks at me, the warning is clear enough, _I'm going, you're not._ Everyone else pipes in with a yes but Jinx's glare still remains stern.

"I'll come!" I chirp happily. I'm not about to let Jinx hate me just because it'd be easier for me to keep her happy by doing what she wants me to. What is it they say? If the right thing were easy to do everyone would be doing it, that and that the path of true love never runs smooth. She glares at me with a look that I've only seen on her face for Madame Rouge. I shudder and hope that I've not gotten to this whole situation too late and that she doesn't hate me irreparably already, I just hope that she'll understand me when I talk to her. She shoots daggers at me with her eyes and walks off ahead of me to the Titan's pizza place, I follow Robin who right now looks like he's rather be balancing on a tightrope over a pit of alligators, though he probably has done that actually, I make a mental note to ask.

_They just can't believe that there is nothing between you and me,_

_I'd rather plead the fifth_

_Than talk about the girl you're still in love with_

_Julia Nunes, Maybe I will_

Jinx

I lean against the yellow plastic counter of the pizza place that we frequent after both successful and unsuccessful fights with Starfire and Raven, I vaguely wonder what this much pizza will do to my figure. I focus on keeping my breathing even and repeating the drink orders that we've been given from the others; Pepsi for Robin, Fanta for Beast Boy, an extra large Coke for Cyborg, Iced Tea for Raven, Pink Lemonade for me, a bottle of mustard for Starfire and Lemonade for _him_. I feel my blood fizz almost as if it had been replaced by that lemonade. How dare he be here with us? In this place that we come to for relaxing, in these places that I come to with my friends and feel safe, how can he come here and make this a nightmare for me?!

"Breathe." Raven warns from next to me. I let out the breath that I didn't know I'd been holding and taste the metallic tang of blood in my mouth, I've bitten my lip hard enough to make it bleed. I groan inwardly. Nice one Jinx, bloody lips are very attractive. I mentally smack myself for that thought, what do I care if I look attractive? I don't want Cyborg's attention ever again, Beast Boy is so obviously fixated on Raven that it's painful and even if Robin weren't taken I would never date him and Kid Flash and I are history, so why should I care what I look like?

"_Breathe!_" Raven reminds me again. I let out and angry breath in a whoosh of air. Starfire casts a worried sidelong look at me from where she stands with her back to the counter and watching the boys at their table. I'm tempted to look myself just to see how my friends are treating _him_ but I decide against it.

"You need to be _calm_." Raven insists. The temptation to shout at Raven about shoving her meditative techniques up her ass flares up and I suppress it violently, she's only trying to help after all.

"I'm so angry." I hiss stating the obvious.

"You need to let go of that, you want your answer don't you? You're not going to get anywhere in this situation acting like that." Raven says sagely.

"I don't want an answer, I don't want to hear about whatever girl he's been gallivanting about with, he's nothing to me!" I insist furiously as I feel the tiny pinpricks of tears building behind my eyes.

"Well if you want to give him that impression I wouldn't recommend acting all wound up and upset, because if he really meant nothing to you, then you'd be calm." Raven points out logically. I tilt my head in concession to her logic and try and calm down, she has a point, he needs to mean nothing to me so I need to act like it, he needs to see that I'm totally indifferent to his horrible treatment of me.

"Fanta, Pepsi, Iced Tea, Pink Lemonade, Lemonade, a large squeezy tube of mustard with a straw and an extra large Coke." Raven rattles off monotonously to the blemished teen standing before us that I'd not even noticed. He nods and shuffles off to get the drinks.

"Friend Jinx…" Starfire sighs uncertainly as she turns back to me and leans on the counter, "I know you feel strongly towards the Kid Flash and that you're somewhere between love and hate with him but… I am conflicted." She says with worry pulling her small eyebrows toward each other into a concerned frown.

"Conflicted?" I ask glad for the distraction and quite pointedly ignoring her insinuation about love and hate.

"He has been most terrible to you and made you cry so much, and I know you despise him for all he's done. I also know that we are your very close friends and that I am supposed to hate the Kid Flash for you in the sisterly spirit of solidarity but… I really_ like_ him." She sighs unhappily.

"You LIKE him?!" I squawk shocked, I thought she was all about the boy wonder! When did this thing with Kid Flash occur?! A horrible thought in my mind unfurls about the possibility of Starfire being the other girl that I've been agonising over for months. The boy returns with a full tray of drinks that promptly explode as that thought crosses my mind and images of Kid Flash and Starfire entwined together fill my head.

"Yes, we have always been good friends in the past." Starfire nods oblivious to my near heart attack moments before, "I feel strange about hating him so suddenly, even on your behalf." I relax, Starfire means liking him as a friend rather than _liking_ him. God that sounded so childish, even in my own head.

"Star, I'm not going to tell you to take sides, I'm not petty. Be friends with who you want." I smile weakly at her. Her face cracks in two with a giant smile and she lunges herself off of the counter and at someone, I turn to see her arms wrapped around the neck of a very startled looking Kid Flash.

"Oh joy! We are still friends!" Star giggles at him.

"Of course we are Star, I'll always be your friend." He laughs patting her back.

"I just remembered, we have to be somewhere… else…" Raven says hurriedly and pulls Starfire away with her back to the table at a speed I didn't realise that she was capable of.

"Don't hit me." He says quickly to me as he holds his hands up defensively with a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips, he clearly thinks that he's being funny.

"Bite me." I mutter turning my back on him and glaring down at the sickly yellow counter.

"So… what was that big explosion all about then?" he asks leaning against the counter next to me, not so close that we're touching but I can still feel the burning heat from his super fast body radiating out from him.

"Nothing." I mutter irritatedly.

"Didn't sound like nothing. I guess Starfire still doesn't get the double meanings of some things she says huh?" he says the pleased smile evident in his voice.

"If you knew why did you ask?" I shoot back annoyed, what is he trying to get out of this?

"Were you jealous?" He asks. My head snaps up to look at him, I mentally curse the inches that he has on me now, he seems to tower overpoweringly over me.

"Hardly." I hiss, "I just wouldn't want anyone else to go through the train wreck that is a relationship with you." The expression on his face flickers to hurt and I feel a flash of victory inside me and I look back into the kitchen of the pizza place and watch the boy gathering our drinks up again.

"It might have been a train wreck but it's still a risk I'd take again with you." He whispers to me, I feel my skin prickle at this, he's so close and it's just too much. I glance down, I can see the reflection of his smile in the scuffed metal of the cash register, damnit, he's messing with me again! The register explodes sending the drawer flying open and spilling notes and coins across the floor.

"Some habits hard to break?" He questions looking from the drawer to me. My jaw drops, he just accused me of subconsciously trying to rob the place.

"SCREW YOU! YOU'RE LUCKY THAT WASN'T YOU THAT GOT HEXED!" I scream at him as the server cautiously hovers tray in hand clearly wary of another explosion. I turn to him fiery eyed and grab the tray off him roughly and storm off to our table, everyone's already staring at me, they were all watching that. I feel tears stinging harder in my eyes and I blink furiously, I will NOT cry in front of _him_. I won't give him the satisfaction.

"Here!" I shout throwing the tra_y_ down.

"I'm going home, I'm not hungry!" I shout as if trying to shout down other people protesting but everyone's just looking at me in concerned silence. I swipe my drink off of the tray and stomp off back towards the tower.

"Jinx wait!" _he_ calls after me and follows.

"Leave me alone!" I shout walking as fast as I can away without breaking into a run, not that there would be any point in running, he could catch me no matter how fast I go. I feel trapped all of a sudden.

"Will you just _wait_ and give me like… two seconds to talk to you?" he calls reaching out for me. I stop suddenly, a part of me does want to hear this whilst the rest of me is just screaming to get out of there. His hand makes contact with my back, I can tell from the way his fingers are outstretched that he hadn't expected me to stop so suddenly and have his hand collide with my back but his hands shifts to take advantage of the situation and flattens itself over my spine. His thumb rubs my spin soothingly, his hands are just so warm, I remember when we kissed that he hand one hand on my back trying to pull me closer to him and I remember how incredibly warm he was. The memory makes my powers flare up sensing danger and they hex him off of my back, just a little zap but he curses under his breath and whips his hand away, a pathetic part of me misses it.

"Two seconds." I say stiffly staring forward unseeingly into the road ahead.

"I didn't want to hurt you," he launches into it suddenly, clearly sensing that I mean it, "but I had to go, I had a good reason." He insists.

"So let's hear it." I say my voice flat and dead.

"I…" he stammers, "can I just… not tell you and can you just trust me that it's a good reason?" he says pathetically. I spin on my heel to look at him, he's avoiding my eyes and staring at my boots instead. Surely even he can hear how pathetic that sounds, why on earth would he think that he could say that?

"What?" I demand not even believing my ears.

"I… I don't want to say. But I didn't want to hurt you, I should have told you where I was going but I just… couldn't. I care about you Jinx, I didn't want to do this." He apologises still staring at the floor.

"How DARE you say that to me!" I shout outraged. His head snaps up at this, he stares at me wide eyed.

"You can't just do and say what you did to me and give me to the Titans when I needed you and then just off and disappear for _months_ and then not give me any explanation at all except 'I didn't mean to'! Where did you go? Why did you leave? Why didn't you call any of us or make any contact at all? You can't just say that you don't want to say!" I shout at him furiously, he stares at me like a deer trapped in the headlights.

"I can't tell you, can't you just accept that I'm sorry and I didn't mean it? Please?" He begs.

"No!" I shout back furiously.

"But Jinx-" He squeaks pathetically.

"WHY?" I demand jabbing him in the chest hard, I hope it hurts.

"I can't tell you okay?! I just can't have you look at me like that, I don't… I can't deal with that. Can't you just respect that? Please Jinxie I really need you to just trust me on this. I'm sorry." He says running a hand through his hair in frustration. Jinxie. I want to strangle him for calling me that.

"Trust you?! I trust you about as far as I can throw you! You know what? Whatever stupid reason you have that you can't tell me about that made you do this to me, it's not good enough. Just get lost, I don't want to hear any more." I growled turning my back on him.

"But- I had no choice Jinx, I had to go! I was needed, it was an emergency, s-she needed me, I just-" he says, I can't even hear what he's saying now, it's all just faded out against the pounding of the blood in my ears. I feel like I've just been electrocuted and I'm sure my whole body jerked at that word.

_**She.**_

_She _needed him. So he admits it then. There _was_ someone else, some other girl that needed him, some girl that was obviously more important than me that he'd just drop me and run to her. I spin and throw my drink right in his stupid face and hex the floor below him, the concrete cracks and falls down into a tunnel below taking him with it, he looks up at me in shock and even a little bit of fear. Good. I want him to fear me, I want him to know of the wrath that I can inflict upon him, all of the physical hurt I can do to him to repay him for the mental hurt and anguish he caused me!

"Listen _very_ carefully." I say leaning down to him as he struggles to hold on to the edge of the concrete, "I don't want to hear another word from you, I don't want you to come anywhere near me. Just. Leave. Me. Alone." I say firmly and turn away and storm back to the tower leaving him dangling above the hole in the road. I hope it's a sewage pipe that's open, I hope he falls in it.


	3. Chapter 3

_I've gotten used,_

_To being introduced,_

'_Hello, what's you're name, how are you?'_

_They see my smile, my laugh and the hurt behind my eyes,_

_Loss is not so easily disguised,_

_Julia Nunes, First impressions_

Jinx

So, I should probably explain huh? I have this thing about pity, about trust, about lots of things really, I'm pretty much damaged goods. I don't want people to think of me as this poor hurt little girl, and I don't want people to be 'worried' about how I'm doing. Which makes this whole situation very unfortunate, because you see, Kid Flash broke my heart. And I don't mean that in the girly teenaged way, I genuinely mean it. I was in a pretty bad way when we met, I was at a dead end, I hated my team, I hated myself, I hated everything so much that I was just angry all the time. I still am angry by nature I guess, but around my friends I can finally relax, I can just be normal sometimes, I can just be me. And I didn't have that before, so when he and I met, when he left me with a rose in my hand outside the museum, when we caught him and took him back to our base, I was bad. Not in an evil way, although I was technically that too, but I was very damaged. I used to enjoy what I did but for a long time I hadn't, my team were idiots and I never got what I deserved, the respect, the infamy, the money. I was always hard up, and so I was angry and vicious and spiteful and I was going to get what I wanted no matter who I had to stand on to get it. Kid Flash told me later that he could pretty much read hurt off of people, and being who he was he helped me, that's what he does, he helps people. He said that I was like an animal caught in a trap, sometimes the pain makes them lash out, I kind of resented being likened to an animal but he did have a point.

So he freed me, and he took me back with him and healed me up, put my pieces back together. He found me somewhere to stay, on the first night I stole all the stuff in the place and ran for the city borders, he caught up with me just at the signpost out of the city and asked me why I wanted to leave. I didn't really have an answer for that and he asked if it was just so I could hurt him before he had a chance to hurt me, I didn't know what to say to that which I guess was answer enough for him. So we were friends, he gave me space to do my stuff, I think he was a little shy to be honest, it's one thing to rescue the damsel in distress but hell, what do you say to her afterwards in that awkward post-rescue phase?

I met him at the beach at sunset one day, he was just sitting there like a beautiful statue, that's when I kissed him for the first time. He kissed me back instantly before suddenly leaping back and asking me if I was just doing this because I was grateful for what he'd done. I hit him for that idea, I was damaged but not that damaged, we were there for ages talking and cuddling close. I remember the smell of salt and the warmth from his body. He asked me out and I said yes, we had a date the next day at an amusement park where it turns out that I'm apparently the worst at any game involving luck (big surprise there).

When we got back to my place he promised me when I was half asleep in his arms on the sofa after an hour of watching movies that he'd never hurt me, that he'd never leave me, that he'd show me that people can be trusted. And I believed him.

I really did believe him.

So the next day when he told me that the Titans were back and wanted to see me I was ecstatic and terrified all in one, I spent the whole morning quizzing them on what I should do, what they would say, what they were expecting of me as a potential new Titan. Robin said yes to my Titan-ship that afternoon, partially on my own performance on their assault course (after years at HIVE one of the things I can do best is assault courses) and partially on Kid Flash's vouching for me. Robin announced that evening that the next day they'd hold a big press conference to let the public and the officials know that I'd be a Titan, with Kid Flash's vouching for me publicly of course, in a big public ceremony.

Kid Flash said he'd help me move into the tower properly the next day but for tonight I was to stay in the tower, apparently another hero was blowing through the town and needed the apartment come safehouse that I'd been staying in for themselves that night. He left me with a smouldering kiss on the steps of the tower and told me that he'd be there first thing tomorrow and that I'd be fantastic.

And I believed him.

More than anything else I believed him, I trusted him like I'd not trusted anyone in years. And of course the next morning he wasn't there, he wasn't with me and it's wasn't fantastic. And I was left with a broken heart, broken trust and pity from the Titans. They all knew how I felt about him, they all knew that he'd left without a word to me and they all knew that I was damaged again.

Now, as an orphan and a runaway from the foster system I hate pity. People always look at you with looks of pity on their faces, and pity is different from empathy, empathy is 'I understand your situation and I feel your pain', pity is 'poor you, I'd hate for that to happen to me'. There's a clear difference. And what I was getting from everyone was pity. I _hate_ pity.

So I suppose if I had to say why I reacted the way I did today it was for several reasons, one I was angry because he'd hurt me so bad, because he'd promised not to and made be believed him and then broken me worse than anyone else ever had. Two, because I could see my friends out of the corner of my eye and every one had pity written across their faces as clear as day and that infuriated me. And three… well, I've never had great control of my temper. Oh! And he insinuated that I still had compulsions for stealing! So I'm totally of the opinion that he deserved that pink lemonade to the face.

In hindsight it was a bad move for several reasons, one, there's already enough speculation in the media about my personal life and I just blew up at him in public in a very scene-making manner, and two all my friends are now going to think I'm more than a little unhinged. And the third would be that I was so fumingly angry that when I stormed off I actually stormed off in the opposite direction to the tower so I ended up being the last one back. And so here I am, standing at the open door equally open mouthed as I stare at a whole bunch of heroes, although, thankfully none of them are Kid Flash. They are however the entire Titan's east along with all the Titans that should be there, although at the moment I'm not the biggest centre of attention as Bumblebee and Cyborg are quite painfully obviously flirting with each other and totally oblivious to everyone else being aware of this.

"It's good to see you again Bee." Cyborg says with a shaky smile.

"You too Sparky." She smiles back at him.

"How are you liking being leader then?" He asks after a second or two.

"Oh! Good good, things are fine!" Bumblebee says nodding so vigorously that I'm surprised her bobbly head didn't fall right off of her neck.

"I knew you'd do good." Cyborg grins proudly. I shut the door behind me loudly, everyone but those two notice. I shoot Raven an '_are these two for real?'_ look and she grins and rolls her eyes at them.

"Aw, thanks. It's not the same without you there though…" She says bashfully as she looks up at Cyborg through her thick lashes, I roll my eyes, that's so obvious as far as flirting goes. Eeesh. This is painful to watch.

"I liked being there." He replies quietly, the insinuation of _with you_ is blatant. I wonder briefly how Cyborg would physically handle a relationship what with all his metal parts, after a few seconds thought I very hurriedly decide that I'd rather not know.

"So," Robin says coughing obviously, the two lovebirds spring apart as if they'd been doing something more scandalous than simply talking, "this issue that you were saying about?" Robin prompts after another second, I walk over into the centre of the room suddenly glad that the romance channel here and whatever big news they're here on has pushed my personal drama to the back burner.

"Oh yes!" Bumblebee gasps as if she'd only just remembered, which, clearly she had. Her team roll their eyes at her, at least I think all of them do, it's hard to tell with Aqualad's entirely black eyes. I make a mental note to ask him how he deals with being incognito in public with his strange eyes, it could help me.

"Well, we understand that you fought Cinderblock today?" Bumblebee began carefully.

"Yes." Robin nods clearly not getting why this deserved a visit, admittedly neither do I. Bumblebee smiles wryly.

"You see, that's the thing. So did we." She says with a slight air of smugness about her.

"She means at the same time, we checked the news, you fought him at midday and so did we." Aqualad fills in.

"What? But that's not possible." Cyborg blinks perplexed.

"Hence the visit." Speedy grins at him.

"Huh, there could be several explanations… but none of them are good for us." Robin muses, whilst the boy wonder is deep in thought Bumblebee takes the opportunity to go all Spanish Inquisition on me, I'd say I didn't expect it but the pun's too bad.

"So, this is your new entry to the team huh?" Bumblebee says looking at me curiously.

"Ah, yes. Jinx, this is Bumblebee." Robin says gesturing her way.

"We've met." I say flatly. Bumblebee grins deviously at this, she knows I mean from the HIVE academy, we weren't exactly friends there, much the opposite in fact, I doubt it'll be any different here.

"No catfights please?" Cyborg sighs clearly more aware of mine and Bumblebee's relationship than I thought, I guess the boy was paying more attention to other things in HIVE than just stealing data and destroying the academy.

"So where is the speed boy that managed to do the impossible and get you here then?" Bumblebee laughs happily. I wince at this and clench my hands in an effort to stop them sparking, clearly my expression is written all over my face and apparently the faces of my team mates too.

"Oh." Bumblebee says reaching the same conclusion as the rest of us are at. I fold my arms, I wonder if she knows that it was another girl, I wonder if his reputation of being a flirt has reached this far, I wonder if he's ever hit on Bumblebee. I look at the rest of her team who all have the same expression of dawning realisation and… and yes, pity for me. I hate that. It's bad enough that I have to endure this nightmare without it being broadcast to everyone I meet.

"I'm doing just fine here." I state meaning both the team and without _him_. Bumblebee nods clearly understanding my meaning.

"Jinx, I don't believe you've met the rest of the Titan's East." Robin says suddenly in a voice that I know means that he hopes I haven't run into them in the past in a professional capacity.

"I haven't." I inform him, he relaxes ever so slightly and waves the other team members over. He quickly introduces them to me, they all shake my hand with looks of pity still lingering on their faces. God I hate pity.

"They're good. So, ideas?" Robin nods looking at us all, I smile, this is the part where we all guess what's the cause of whatever latest oddity is causing us trouble.

"Cloning." I grin.

"Alien cloning!" Beast Boy exclaims jumping in and upping the ante on my guess.

"How about time travel?" Cyborg proposes.

"I hate the time travel." Starfire frowns unhappily.

"Shapeshifter?" Raven muses thoughtfully.

"Ugh. Not Rouge I hope." I shudder unhappily.

"Well, this speculating isn't getting us anywhere, we need some information." Robin declares.

"Oh good, I get to go beat on my old colleagues, that's always fun." I groan feeling my shoulders slump. I know I'm a valuable asset as far as finding things out from the criminal community goes, I know all the right people, I know all the places to go, I know all the right things to say, I know everyone's price. But it's uncomfortable being with those people again, it feels like they know things about me that I don't want the Titans to know. Not that that's true, there's probably little about me Robin hasn't bothered to find out but still… I don't like being there.

"Bumblebee, I want your team scouring for information back in Steel City, get back to us when you have anything. Raven I want you to see if there are any spells that could be causing this, and the rest of you guard the tower and keep patrolling and let everyone else know who you see, I want to know the moment it looks like we have any other double acts going on." Robin says rattling off orders in a way I never could to my team, he's strong and totally in his element, I envy that I never had that with my team and I'm honestly impressed when I see him get all leader-like in moments like this.

"So, I'm guessing the streets need hitting then?" I grin lopsidedly at him and he nods and heads to the garage, I wince and follow. As much as I intellectually understand the need for fast transportation and I understand that Cyborg refuses to let anyone else drive the T-car and I know that I've no way to get places fast, I can't fly or shape shift but still… I really don't like riding on the back of the motorbike. Now don't get me wrong, I've ridden a lot of different vehicles in my time and I've no problem with bikes, but I don't like being a passenger, I don't like holding on for dear life when I'm not the one steering and I'm so exposed and out of control. I absently catch the helmet as Robin throws it at me, he looks from me to the bike and notices my obvious reluctance as I pull the helmet on.

"I know you hate the bike." Robin states from behind his silly yellow visor.

"I just hate being on the back." I sigh pulling back my black visor and looking at him. Robin hesitates, he's clearly not going to let _me_ drive his bike.

"Would you rather have your own?" He asks looking at me over his shoulder as I climb on the back of the bike and fumble to find the grips for my hands.

"That'd be cool." I nod slipping the visor down.

"Just tell me you don't want a pink one." Robin laughs revving the engine as the door opens. I laugh at the mental image of me on a candy pink motorbike fighting crime so much so that I almost don't yelp when the bike lurches forward at illegal speeds out of the door. Almost.

I close my eyes and try to ignore the speed and rushing air, I count backwards in my head, try to remember the alphabet in sign language, I get stumped at what T was when Robin turns the engine off and kicks the kickstand of the bike out and climbs off. I release the handles from my vice like grip and stumble off the machine ungracefully. Robin remains silent and simply gestures to the bar, I take my helmet off, futilely try to re-shape my hair and fail miserably. I sigh and walk up to the bar and kick the door open violently and feel the feral grin spread across my face as I see the stunned and slightly fearful looks on the faces of the bar's occupants. I may be good now, but sometimes it feels damn good to be bad.

"Alright, so who's gonna tell me about Cinderblock?" I shout as I enter the bar with Robin following carefully behind as he keeps a watchful eye on the bar's patrons.

_I've tried my best to keep on with my sunny disposition,_

_But I close my eyes and end up reminiscing,_

_So save me from waking up tonight,_

_Save me from waking up tonight,_

_Cause I toss and I turn,_

_And it doesn't feel right,_

_Julia nunes, First impressions_

Kid Flash

I run along the streets and I've gone a whole block before I realise that I just saw Robin's bike parked outside a bar, I turn and run back and skid to a halt in front of a shady looking bar. I notice two helmets on the bike, Robin's and a plain black one. I pick it up and see a few errant pink hairs stuck to the inside of it. I take a deep breath and turn towards the bar, I can hear Jinx's voice, she's shouting but from the fact that Robin's not also shouting and the bar isn't louder I'm guessing she's not in any danger. I decide to exercise a little caution after this afternoon's outburst, I ignore the part of my that's screaming to run in there and just grab her and not let go until she's not mad anymore and step over to the grimy window and peer in. Jinx is jabbing some guy who looks like he's eight foot tall and could probably bench press me without breaking a sweat in the chest with her finger, I think this is probably the point at which I should make a subtle entrance. I look around to see if there's a side door but there doesn't appear to be so I slip in quietly through the front door, with any luck all attention should be on Jinx so-

"Hey girlie, your boyfriend's here!" One man catcalls drunkenly. I wince and Jinx's head snaps around to me, her eyes are ablaze as the bar descends into whistles and mocking laughter. I can see her face burning red and I wish the ground would swallow me up, this is the last thing I wanted.

"Go on! Give her a kiss then!" One shouts out only to be followed by raucous laughter. My mouth opens and closes like a fish and I see Jinx flinch ever so slightly.

I can hardly hear anything above the laughter so I can't hear if Jinx is saying anything but I can see her lips moving ever so slightly. I'm staring at her so hard that it's not until I notice Robin jolt that I see it, the eight foot monster of a man behind Jinx raising a meaty fist in the air to bring it crashing down on him.

"Jinx!" I gasp reaching forward. The only movement she makes as the largest hex I've ever seen springs from her and to the huge man is her eyes narrowing slightly at me, the giant stumbles and falls to the floor behind her making every glass in the room jump.

"We're done here." Robin announces his voice steely and herds Jinx and me out of the room. Outside the bar I can still hear the laughter, laughter isn't a good sound from criminals, we're supposed to be intimidating not… funny. At least not unless we're trying to be, and even then it's us that laugh not them. Jinx picks up her helmet and Robin snatches it back angrily off of her.

"You two are working this out, you can _walk _back. Whatever the hell you two decide I will not have it affecting our cases like that, we're never going to get anything out of those lot any time soon and it's your fault!" He snaps angrily as he shoves his wrist through the open visor window so he can hold it whilst he rides.

"Hey-!" Jinx protests, clearly she thinks it's my fault.

"It's BOTH of your faults." Robin snaps at her as he climbs on his bike and drives of at stupidly high speeds for someone with human reactions.

"I'm sorry I didn't know that-" I mumble staring at the floor.

"Didn't know that what? That they'd see you? Yeah you're real inconspicuous in your neon red and yellow suit!" Jinx snarls at me and stomps off down the street. I wince, I seem to be a doing a lot of this not thinking thing lately.

"I still didn't think that they'd laugh!" I exclaim as I follow her.

"I'm GOOD at what I do okay?!" Jinx says suddenly stopping and facing me.

"I'm good at getting information, I'm good at fighting, I'm good at figuring things out!" Jinx shouts with tears building in her eyes, I'm not sure if they're anger or pain tears.

"I believe you, I always knew you would be." I say soothingly to her, this seems to just make her madder.

"You made me a LAUGHING stock in there! I can't show my face there ever again! You humiliated me publicly! AGAIN!" She snaps pointing down the road to the bar, a part of my brain tries to work out what she means by again but as a tear spills over one of her eyelids my hand flies up to her face and any logical part of my brain stops working. All I know is that Jinx hurts and I want to make it better.

"Baby… don't…" I breathe rubbing a tear away with my thumb, her eyes scrunch shut and her lashes glisten. She frowns angrily and rips my hand away from her face as her eyes fly open furiously.

"Don't you baby me! You ruin everything!" She shouts her voice hitching on the word baby. I quash the impulsive urge to grab her to me and kiss away her pain, I just want to make this better but everything I do seems to make it worse.

"Please, just talk to me." I beg following her effortlessly as she walks briskly away from me shaking her head. I notice for the first time that her hair is down, or rather, not down as her big circular clips for her horns are still there but the hair in them is loose and free flowing, I can smell her shampoo as her hair flitters in front of my face. It's sweet and seems to impair my brain function.

"No! I'm going back to the tower and you can go crawl back under whatever rock you came out from under." She says shaking her head vigorously.

"Look, if you won't talk to me for me then at least for Robin, he's gonna be mad if we come back still fighting." I insist logically.

"So don't come back." Jinx snaps spitefully. After a second or two she stops walking and presses the heels of her palms to her eyes and lets out a shaky breath, her lips are moving again ever so slightly and now in the quiet away from the bar I can hear that it's Raven's chant that she's muttering quietly. The empath must have taught it to her to help her control herself, I smile slightly, Jinx was always fiery but a little control would do her good, give her a little more power over herself. She pulls her hands away from her eyes and her makeup is smudged slightly, she looks at me in a way that I can't decipher and speaks.

"That can't ever happen again, people depend on us, and we need information." She says carefully.

"I never intended for that to happen the first time let alone again." I agree earnestly.

"So let's get one thing straight," she says poking me in the chest, a horrible voice in my brain reminds me of the man in the bar and makes me wonder if she sees me as just more trash like him, "I hate you." She says clearly.

"What?" I breathe feeling my blood run cold. I can handle Jinx screaming that at me, I can dismiss that as just rage but… her voice is so level, so matter of fact, almost as if she was stating whether it was night or day. She hates me.

"I said I hate you. And I always will, what you did to me is unforgivable and I don't intend to ever forgive you. But we work together, and I'm sure as hell not giving up this job or my friends and I guess I can say the same for you." She states with a sigh.

"Jinx." I say in a voice that sounds far too close to a beg. Hell, screw my dignity, this is the point where I really need to beg her to change her mind, beg her to forgive me, beg her to just… forget everything that happened that shouldn't have.

"No, we need to stop this. I don't care if they treat you like they always have, I'm not going to steal them away from you or anything. But don't talk to me like you know me, like anything ever happened. Let's just… ignore each other." She says rubbing a temple to ease the stress I can see on her face. My chest hurts, my heart's going at a million miles an hour and it feels like it's about to kill me.

"Please…" I try again, my voice choking in my throat. I think this must be what heartbreak feels like, seeing the one you love tell you calmly that she hates you, laying out plans to never have to have a conversation with you again. She's cold and clinical, suddenly I want my fiery angry Jinx back, I want her to throw a soda at my head because at least then she feels something to me.

"I'm going home. Don't follow me." She says simply as she turns away and walks off. I guess I must have watched her until she disappeared from sight because it's only when I can't see her anymore that I collapse onto the curb and with my head between my knees howl in pain as I feel like my heart's just been ripped clean out.

I arrive back at my apartment in a blur and rip off my uniform like it burns me. I throw myself on the bed in my boxers just as the sobs start. I thought I could get her back, I thought that she'd let me love her again, I thought that she'd forgive me, I thought I'd get to kiss her again and actually get to tell her that I love her. I cry for what feels like days.

I lean on the breakfast bar in the Tower and watch Jinx on the sofa out of the corner of my eye, she's laying on the sofa reading a magazine, her legs are crossed and her top leg is jigging to some beat that only she can hear, she seems to be conducting the music with the motions of her big toe.

I kick into high speed and run over to her, taking my time as I spin around her and watch her from every angle almost frozen in time, she is without a doubt the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.

"I'm sorry… please don't kill me." I say to her. Her eyes slide sideways to look at me, I think for a moment that she's ignoring me as she looks back at her magazine and turns the page.

"I'm not going to kill you." She sighs frustratedly as she flips the page again a little more violently this time.

"You're not? But last night…" I trail off reminding myself not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Robin told me. He told me everything." She says her finger tracing the words of whatever it is she's reading. My blood runs cold, he can't have been mad enough to tell her could he? He promised me, he said he understood, he said he wouldn't tell.

"I'm still mad at you, you should have said." She says sitting up and looking at me with a frown on her face that I hardly see through my shock. She reaches forward and rests her hands on my shoulder and says the words that I can't bear to hear. The words I could never bear to hear from her.

I leap up in my bed with a scream, it's only in the dark silence of my room that I realise I was dreaming, my chest heaves and the threat of tears sting my sore eyes again threatening to spill again. I look at the clock by my bed, it's two am. I get up and brush my teeth as I forgot to do it before falling asleep and then crawl shakily back into bed. I have three more nightmares before I finally gasp awake at five am with the words 'I hate you' still ringing in my head. I run to the tower desperate to escape from my nightmares that have suddenly become a reality.


	4. Chapter 4

_Left to my own devices I'd stay up till 3am,_

_Spend the whole day barely awake and then do it all again,_

_Because my dreams are filled with pleasantries,_

_That make me think you're there with me,_

_They won't let me poor heart mend_

_Julia nunes, First impressions_

Jinx

Dreams are funny, the strangest things can happen and you don't even blink an eye, tea with a brontosaurus? How normal. Gravity suddenly suspended just for you? Of course. So you'll understand why I'm reluctant to sleep of late, dreams make you gullible, you blindly trust anything you see and we all know how I don't like to trust. But there are only so many late night movies and cups of coffee a girl can drink without going out of her mind, so I know I have to sleep. But it hurts, because of course I dream of _him_.

I lay on the sofa cuddled up to him and a breathy sigh escapes my lips, his arms are around me and a soothing hubbub of noise that is the usual sounds of the tower washes over me making me feel safe and happy. I feel him lazily kiss the top of my head and play with my hair with his left hand as his right draws small slow circles on the top of my arm.

"I'm sorry we fought." He murmurs into my hair as he nuzzles my head.

"Mmm, me too." I agree rolling over to rest my head on his smooth stomach.

"You know, it's silly," He laughs lightly; "I don't even remember what it was we were fighting about." I frown and desperately try to remember, it was something that seemed so important at the time but…

"Neither do I." I concur pulling a face, I should remember, but somehow I can't.

"Don't think about it." He says rubbing my back reassuringly.

"I won't." I smile at him softly, he smiles back and looks heavenly as he does so.

"You know," He says starting a new topic of conversation, "you're doing so well here. You're just so good at what you do. I'm really proud." He beams at me.

"You think so?" I ask hopefully.

"I know so." He replies leaning down to kiss me.

I jerk awake at that, I can still feel the heat from his body on me as if he was here just a second ago. I hate myself as half of me wants to cry in pain at the dream and the fact that it's not real and can never be and the other half weakly wants to go back to dreaming, because at least dreaming of wonderful moments is better than living in waking pain. I wonder if Raven is awake but as my clock tells me it's four am I'm guessing not, the girl dislikes being disturbed at the best of times let alone the middle of the night. I roll over and try to go back to sleep praying that it's any other dream than one with him, heck, I'd even take some of my old nightmares over this torment.

My body feels… warm after a while and I lazily open my eyes to see him hovering over me, his eyes somewhere between warm and smouldering.

"Hey." I say reaching up and stroking the exposed part of his face, he leans in and kisses my wrist.

"Hey yourself." He replies huskily as he gives my wrist a nip with his teeth. I can feel his hands straying under my clothes, both higher and lower than they should be.

I leap awake with a gasp still almost able to feel ghostly fingers on my body, I flush bright red and decide that I don't care what time it is I'm getting up. I pad out of my room and down the stairs in my pink pyjamas, I head for the kitchen with the idea of an espresso burning into my brain, coffee would be good now, no more dreams. I flick the light in the kitchen on as I enter and the brightness stings my eyes, as I make my way to the coffee machine I realise that the light seems to be getting brighter, I look up at its like looking into the sun until the bulb bursts and rains glass down on me.

I scream girlishly and cover my head as fast as I can, after a second or two it feels safe and a cautiously try to dislodge glass from my arms and my hair checking that I've not been cut anywhere. Robin appears at the door and looks from me to the burst bulb and puts two and two together.

"I told you you overloaded the generator, you just blew a bulb!" Robin shouts down the hallway.

"I said I was sorry." A slightly rough voice replies, it almost sounds… husky. I jump like I've been electrocuted when I realise just where that voice is coming from and who it belongs to. I vault over the counter top and run for the door to the stairs, I whoosh past Robin before he can say a word and hopefully where the husky voices of my dreams won't follow.

It's only when I get back to my room that I realise that there's glass in my hand, there must have been some on the counter top when I jumped it, I don't seem to have any in my feet which is a small mercy. I swear under my breath and try to pull the thin sliver of glass out, it comes free with a jiggle and blood blossoms under the skin of my palm. I sigh, there's no way I'm leaving this room now until he leaves or all of the others are up so I can reasonably ignore him.

I wander to the bathroom and put a plaster on my hand and then snuggle back down into my bed, I don't want to sleep so I pull my laptop up onto my lap and turn it on. I tap my fingers aimlessly on the bottom of the laptop as it boots up glad that it's not connected to the wall if Kid Flash is blowing fuses across the tower, I'll kill a few hours aimlessly on the internet, check my email, play a few flash games, then I can get up and pretend it's for the first time.

I automatically check my email and realise I have something new from Cyborg that was sent only just a few moments ago, the damn thing's an essay without any spaces making it nigh on unreadable but the subject reads 'disguiseready!!!' so I'm guessing that this has something to do with Robin's vague comment about Cyborg being the one who'd arrange my disguise as a civilian. I get dressed quickly and shut the laptop on my way out of the room, I head hurriedly down the corridor to Cyborg's room hoping not to run into any speedsters along the way, thankfully I'm lucky and I manage to knock on the door just before it whips out of the way. Cyborg's grinning down at me like a lunatic and my brain rapidly tries to work out how quickly he opened that door, Kid Flash used to do that when he was excited. I frown at that thought and make my way into his room, he's babbling ridiculously fast at me and I can't even understand him.

"Slow down, are you on speed or something?" I say holding my hand up to him.

"I don't know man, I just was there on my bed sleeping like normal and then like WHAM I feel so recharge and alive and I just realised that I had a million things to do today and now I have all the energy to do them! I've not felt this awake since I had that high speed chip in me that made me go all zombified eventually but I've already run five diagnostics and there's nothing new in my systems and BOY I FEEL GREAT!" Cyborg blurts out excitedly. I look over at the power cable lying on what functions as Cyborg's bed, he was recharging… he was probably still hooked up when Kid Flash decided to give us a little extra power and blow light bulbs and fuses across the board, he's lucky that he didn't blow anything in Cyborg who aside from being overcharged and hyper as a four year old seems fine. Robin's probably going to have a fit when he finds out though all the same, I grin, that's something I wanna see.

"I think Kid Flash supercharged you a little, Robin said something about him overloading the generator. He blew a light bulb too." I explain watching Cyborg carefully, he nods so fast that I think the bolts in his neck are gonna pop off and send his head flying off onto the floor.

"Makes sense I'm guessing that he was on one of the treadmills they're all self powered you've got to run to turn them on but I guess he generated so much power it went back into the system and the generators and then me, MAN does he feel this awake all the time?! This is AWESOME!" He says speedily.

"Super. You emailed me about… something? Disguises?" I say flatly.

"Oh yeah, check these babies out, I finished them this morning in about… three minutes!" He grins thrusting two rings at me, I take them gingerly from his shaking hands and inspect them, they're flat, silver with a little grove in one and a matching piece jutting out of the face of the other, they're a little unusual but the two faces clearly fit together.

"These look like-" I start slowly.

"Like the ones that I had when I was at HIVE? Yeah they had my rock form and my human form in too! I modified the design a little for you it's more of a fit together and twist thing rather than a slam together type thing that I had before, that'll stop accidental activations. Give them a whirl!" He says quickly with a huge grin on.

"Stop interrupting me, he was always doing that." I say rolling my eyes as I slip the rings on my middle finger, experimentally I press them together and see that the two halves to indeed fit, I turn my right hand clockwise and my left anti-clockwise and a bright light bursts from them and slips over my whole body dramatically. I look down to see… my usual clothes; I glance up and catch my face in Cyborg's shiny chest plate. I look exactly the same as always.

"They don't work you moron." I frown feeling angry at him for getting my hopes up.

"Well that's because I've not put anything into them yet, I figured I should let you design how you want to look rather than me doing it for you. I thought you'd be mad if I did." He says taking them off of me, I consider this, he's probably right.

"So how do we do this thing?" I ask with one hand on my hip.

"Behold!" He declares zipping over to his computer faster than he should, his fingers become a blur over the keyboard and a 3-D image of my rotating slowly appears on his screen.

"I got this information from the scanners in the tower and the battle rooms, I've got your overall dimensions, colouring and so on, so we've got a base to work from." He explains. I squint at the screen, that's a very detailed picture of me, and he seems to have every angle of my covered.

"Precisely how _detailed_ are these scans you have of me?" I ask threateningly as a wave of paranoia washes over me.

"Uh… this detailed? Nothing inappropriate!" He adds quickly, I regard his twitchy demeanour for a second or two whilst giving him what Kid Flash referred to as 'the look'.

"Good answer." I say eventually and ignore the relieved sigh that Cyborg lets out.

"So… what can you change? How different can I go? What are the limitations?" I ask curiously.

"Well I can't convincingly make you bigger or taller, I mean I can make you look that way but if I made you say a foot taller if anyone touched you it'd look like their hand went through a few inches of your shoulder or something. Obviously I can't make you smaller either, the model just wouldn't fit around you." He explains.

"What are you trying to say about my size there Robo-boy?" I ask threateningly.

"Oh god! Nothing! Don't kill me!" He yelps covering his head.

"Good answer. Tell me about changing my skin colour; I don't wanna be grey as a civilian." I demand as I poke at the screen.

"That I can do! Pick any shade you like!" Cyborg says happy that he can give a good answer without being threatened. I regard the colour palettes on the screen carefully; it seems that I really could have any shade, even if I wanted to be green. I straighten up and head out of the room.

"Hey- where are you going? Don't you want a disguise?" Cyborg calls after me, I lean back through the door and grin at him.

"This is the chance for the biggest makeover in the history of makeovers, I'd be kicked out of the sisterhood of women if I didn't let Starfire and Raven help me." I laugh as I leave the room.

Starfire seems absolutely thrilled with the idea the moment I knock on her door and explain to her and she follows me to Raven's room exuberant regardless of the early hour, with a cautious glance at each other I knock on Raven's door. After a while the door slides open with dark energy and a voice comes from the dark figure sitting up in the bed.

"Someone had better be dying for you to wake me up this early or I swear someone WILL be." She growls in a gravely voice.

"My disguise is ready, Cyborg's making it, and I needed your help picking it out." I explain quickly and quietly.

"You have Starfire for makeover time, leave me alone." She says flopping back on the bed and pulling her duvet up over her again.

"Yeah but I need you to make sure Star doesn't do anything terrible to me in her excitement." I point out.

"Yes, heaven forbid you might end up with something dreadful like pink spiky hair and grey skin. GO AWAY." She says her command somewhat ruffled by the duvet.

"If you get up now there will be tea, if you don't I'll let Starfire in the room to wake you up and make you come with us anyway." I say flatly, sometimes with Raven there needs to be an ultimatum with Starfire included as the threat.

"It had better be the best tea in the whole history of tea." Raven threatens as she casts he duvet off of her.

"A wise choice." I say with a smile as I leave the room.

"Well? Is she joining us for the making over of Jinx?" Starfire asks eagerly at the door.

"Yes, but she says you have to make her tea first. And meet her in Cyborg's room." I say solemnly. Starfire gasps excitedly and zips off. I grin evilly to myself as I wander off back to Cyborg's room, I might have given up the bulk of my evil behaviours but some things like passing off your own chores onto those gullible enough to do them for you is something I don't think I'll ever feel inclined to do.

When Raven arrives and is greeted with tea I'm already trying to select a skin colour from the apparent multitudes of shades that I was previously unaware that existed.

"I can't decide!" I shout rejecting another rosy pink shade on the small rotating model of me that makes my hair look god-awful and clashing; I collapse backwards into a chair dejectedly. I've no basis on which to measure what looks right on me, I've been grey pretty much as long as I can remember, and I don't remember what I looked like before my powers came through and made me look this way.

"Change your hair colour first." Raven says looking quickly at the screen.

"Okay…" I say slowly as I think about it, there have to be less hair shades available than skin colours right? Especially since I'm not going out of my way to be anything neon, it's all normal natural colours for me from here on out.

"Black." I say looking at the spinning version of me; Cyborg clicks a flat black colour to start working with.

"Not bad… but now my skin tone makes me look like a mall goth." I grimace.

"It's not supposed to go with how you look now. It'll be fine. Add some chestnut tones in there, make it look natural." Raven commands pointing to a shade on the left hand side of the screen.

"Now what?" I ask with a sigh.

"Well, that eliminates a lot of pinker skin tones and a lot of the more Anglo-Saxon white tones." Cyborg points out.

"Well that's a start I guess. But there's still so many!" I say hopelessly.

"Would this help?" Starfire asks holding out a fashion magazine that she I guess brought with her, either that or it's Cyborg's and I don't really wanna think about that. I take the magazine from her nonetheless and start flicking through the pages looking for any models with black hair, I skip past a few Japanese girls, I don't have the features to make that look normal for me though I'd be hard pressed to say precisely what racial makeup my genes are made of, being made grey doesn't give you a lot to work with in terms of guessing.

My eyes catch on a model twirling in a pretty sundress and I smile, I turn the magazine to Cyborg and point to her.

"Like this!" I exclaim handing the magazine over. He stares at the picture with a thoughtful frown for a moment or two and from the slight whirring of his mechanical eye I'm guess he's trying to work out the colour codes for her skin tone because sure enough he turns back to the keyboard and starts tapping in numbers. He hits enter and the spinning model of me suddenly changes skin colours, I gasp in delight, it looks great! Starfire frowns thoughtfully at the image on the screen.

"A little lighter?" She suggests, Cyborg complies and she smiles pleased. I don't really see what change she's made because I'm too caught up in looking at the picture of the girl on the screen who looks like just a normal girl and not like me at all! That is until she spins around again and I catch a flash of pink eyes, my eyes.

"Change those." I say darkly as I point to the offending things on the screen.

"Ooh! A dark brown, like the chocolate!" Starfire exclaims excitedly. Cyborg obliges and gives me much the same sort of eye colour as he himself has. Raven leans down and inspects the screen.

"I think some eyebrows perhaps?" Raven suggests with somewhat of a smirk evident in her voice. I glare at her, I'm very sensitive about having no eyebrows what with having accidentally hexed them off a few years ago after I'd figured out that you could shape eyebrows with hexes. I was going for a defined brow but when three boys burst suddenly into your bathroom and startle you there's always the risk of your powers flaring from surprise and hexing the whole damn things off. Needless to say Gizmo doesn't actually shave his head; his baldness was my personal revenge for him being mostly responsible for my looking permanently surprised. I'm surprised Starfire doesn't say anything what with her being almost as eyebrow impaired as me but then I remember that that's normal on her planet.

Starfire and Raven urge Cyborg to make a few more tweaks until he finally gets bored and leans back on his chair and hands the now unplugged rings to me.

"Want to give it a proper test drive now then?" He asks with a smile.

I stand up and shakily put them on, I take a deep breath and squeeze my eyes shut although I have to open them again to fit the rings together. I close my eyes again and spin the rings, I almost can't bear to look but when I hear the gasps of Raven and Starfire my eyes fly open of their own accord anyway. I look from one to the other but instead of seeing horror or shock I see… awe and some undescribed look on Starfire's face that looks a little sappier than I'd like.

"How do I look?" I ask warily. Raven simply puts her hands on my shoulders and spins me around to see the full length mirror on Cyborg's back wall. I gasp and run over to it.

The girl before me has darkish skin making her look like she's of vaguely Indian decent and surprisingly previously unseen defined cheekbones actually add to this. Through heavy dark lashes and dark narrow brows eyes like chocolate look out at me, just as Starfire asked for, I lean closer and look quickly from the light and back to the mirror to make my pupil as small as possible, I can now see that my new eyes are multi-hued comprising a wide spectrum of earthy browns but not a single trace of pink to be found. I look up at her dark hair encased in horns and I reach up and undo the clips hurriedly, around the face of the girl in the mirror lush dark locks fall and lie in gentle waves around her face and hang to her shoulders. I turn my head this way and that and see some chestnutty tones shimmer out temptingly at me. I comb a hand through my hair and the girl in the mirror does the same, I look down at my own hands and see for once a nice skin colour, I see a normal skin tone with clear nails the colour of cinnamon sugar and it finally starts to skink in that the beautiful but completely normal looking girl in the mirror is really me. This is really how I look now.

I turn around to see Cyborg looking at me curiously. I throw myself at him suddenly, my arms wrapping around his big metal neck and sob into his broad shoulders happily.

"Thank you!" I sob happily.

"Cool. Can I go back to bed now?" Raven asks in a deadpan voice but I ignore her, I couldn't be happier right now.

_Tell me this, why do you run away?_

_Just when I'm about to say,_

_Something true for once_

_You should try it and say what you mean_

_Cause I can't read the lines let alone in-between_

_Julia Nunes into the sunshine _

Kid Flash

I sit on the floor of the Titan's gym come training room panting slightly, the treadmill connected to the mains is slightly melted and worn on it's tread, thankfully I know this without looking at it because there's only one light left working in this room and it's just hanging onto it's flickering life. I hear Robin yelling at the end of the hallway about breaking the generator or something. He sounds pretty mad so I get up and walk down the hallway towards him, I can see him silhouetted against the light shining in from the big bay windows in the main room.

"What are you moaning about?" I groan rubbing my sweaty hair roughly with my hand. I see the sudden blackness and light again caused by someone running across the doorway and disappearing, it doesn't take me long to work out who'd be so desperate to avoid me even at this hour. I sigh morosely as I get to Robin, he looks back from the now shut doorway at the end of the room to me guiltily, he goes to say something and then his jaw clicks shut as he decides not to.

I shake my head and move past him to the busted light bulb above the kitchen island and the detritus of glass around it, I spot a dark red smear across the surface of the island and hope quietly that if that is indeed Jinx's blood that she'd not hurt herself too bad.

"So, I've seen people more eager to get the plague than Jinx is to be around you." Robin begins tactfully.

"I've noticed." I say flatly as I shoot Robin a sidelong glance, he chews the inside of his cheek thoughtfully.

"So what did you actually say to her before you got your soda shower?" He asks walking past the kitchen island and reaching down into a low cupboard to retrieve a dustpan and brush.

"I told her that I was sorry, that I had a good reason for going." I answer as he sweeps glass up off of the floor.

"But you didn't tell her what it was." Robin states rather than asks. I stay silent at that, there's no point me answering questions Robin knows the answer to, especially ones that he knows that he knows the answer to, it just makes him smug.

"Could her reaction possibly be any worse than this?" Robin sighs straightening up and looking at me with a look that I can only describe as disgruntled frustration.

"Yes." I say emphatically.

"Besides," I say gesturing him away dismissively, "she'll calm down soon. She probably won't forgive me for this but she can't stay mad at me forever."

"You've _met_ Jinx right?" Robin snorts.

"Shut your stupid face bird-boy, we've got a bond, you can't just break something like that. She'll trust me again." I assert trying to push out the ringing of Jinx's voice saying that she hated me out of my mind.

"Just. Tell. Her." He orders me.

"I can't!" I snap angrily.

"Then Jinx never trusting you or even wanting to be in your presence again is the price you pay for that secrecy." Robin shoots back at me before thrusting the dustpan and brush into my chest.

"Clean up your own damn mess." He mutters as he walks out of the room, I'm uncertain as to whether he means the glass or Jinx. I grumble to myself for a while and clean up the glass reside and happily see no more blood anywhere. After everything is put away again and the light bulb replaced I lie down on the sofa and stare at the ceiling. This is a god-awful situation, I'm not in any way prepared to tell Jinx the truth, I don't want to see the way she'll look at me, with pity, disgust, and a whole range of other unpleasant things. I can't stand to hear the things she'll say if she found out. I know intellectually that I'm being stupid, that I made a dumb mistake, that I ignored the signs that I should have told Jinx something but I was just so focused on… well. I roll over and try and think of the best case scenario instead. Jinx tells me that it's all okay, that she understands, that she accepts me flaws and all and that she loves me.

Gee. Why don't I just wish for a pony since I'm clearly already dreaming? I roll on my side and cautiously turn on the giant TV hoping that it doesn't blow, thankfully it doesn't and I switch over to the talk show channels, I want to wallow in watching people with problems worse than mine. I find however that I'm not watching the show at all and all my mind is doing is running over memories of Jinx.

_I'm laying on the hill in the dark sucking air noisily into my lungs and I'm completely aware that I hurt EVERYWHERE, I think back to my instinctual act of leaving Jinx a rose and wonder how or if she'll react. I close my eyes feeling tired and when I open them a few minutes later she's standing above me looking down at me. And she's just… __**beautiful. **__Her mouth is twisted slightly and she's frowning slightly but I get the feeling that it's not at me._

"_Hi." I say reaching a hand up towards her as a reflex. Her shoulders rise and fall as she sighs deeply and she hovers her hand slightly above of mine so her fingers draw whorls in my gloved palm._

"_You're trouble you are." She asserts sitting down by my head and running her fingers down my arm as she lowers herself to the floor. My body tingles._

"_Oh?" I ask tilting my head backwards to look at her._

"_Do you have ANY idea of what I just did back there? What you made me do?" She asks accusatorially. _

"_Made you?" I ask slightly shocked as I roll over suddenly to look at her seriously. She sticks out her bottom lip in a pout at this and glares at the horizon._

"_Okay fine. Don't let me hold on to any denial. It would have been nice to blame you for that." She grumbles unhappily._

"_Why would I want to take credit for you kicking Rouge's butt? You were awesome." I breathe in a voice that sounds a little huskier than I was aware I could be. Clearly my body already has ideas about Jinx as my eyes seem to be appraising her fantastic self of their own accord and my pulse thumps in my veins agreeably._

"_I've sort of screwed up the whole life plan I had going you know." She points out looking at me._

"_So… get a new one." I offer feeling stupid the moment the words leave my mouth, genius there Kid, just fantastic._

"_Easier said than done, I have no one that cares about me, no one who'll be willing to give me a second chance at anything now, no money, no supplies, no nothing." She huffs unhappily. I settle down next to her and ignore the part of my brain that's screaming at me to kiss her._

"_Just ask." I say sounding far more cool and collected than I am._

"_What?" She asks looking at me suddenly._

"_Just ask." I repeat earnestly. Thoughts and emotions flit across her face and I try my hardest to memorise this moment._

"_How much more could I possibly ask of you?" She frowns clearly not used to people wanting to make her life better for her without a price._

"_Ask and find out, I want to help you Jinx, I want to make everything okay." I smile at her._

"_Well…" She says uncomfortably, "It's kinda… cold out. If you could lend me some money for a place to stay then…" she says trailing off before shaking her head, she clearly thinks that this is even too much to ask._

"_You're more than welcome to stay with me, in fact I insist. I'd hate the thought of you running into Rouge again." I add worriedly._

"_Hey, unlike you I won a fight against her." Jinx points out sharply._

"_Exactly, I need you to protect me." I grin at her, a smile spreads across her face and she laughs at that._

"_Okay, I'll protect your sorry red and yellow butt in exchange for a place to stay. Deal?" She chuckles holding a hand out to me._

"_Deal." I smile grabbing her hand._

I jerk awake and realise that I'd dosed off in my memories, although I don't think I'd gone deep enough into sleep for it to really be a dream, it seemed to be the same as I remember it. I close my eyes and can still almost see Jinx's smiling face behind my eyelids. My heart aches in response and I hate myself for screwing this up. It's pretty much light outside so I flick the TV off and head upstairs determined on seeing Jinx and putting everything right. I turn the corner and see Jinx, Starfire and Raven coming out of Cyborg's room, Starfire and Jinx are laughing with each other and Raven's quietly smiling to herself. It's her who spots me first and she shoots me a dark look at the sight of me, none of the other Titans except Robin have really mentioned the issues between me and Jinx but Raven has made it perfectly clear from her looks and body language that she'd not be devastated if I were to suddenly drop down dead. Starfire's already stated that she wants to be friends with both of us so when she notices me all she does is flick a worried look between me and Jinx, her half eyebrows pinching together in a worried expression.

Jinx looks over her shoulder at me, her hair's down. I've never seen it down, she looks fantastic, I want to run over there and bury my face in it and tangle my fingers in it. I repress the urge to do just that, Jinx's scalding look aids to my restraint. Starfire tugs on Raven's cloak urging her to leave and leave the two of us alone.

"Call if you need help taking out the trash." Raven says not particularly quietly as she throws a venomous look my way before heading off with Starfire.

"Get lost Kid Flash, I was having a good morning until you showed up." Jinx says dismissively as she turns her back on me to walk off.

"Please?" I ask zipping in front of her a blocking her way.

"Just give me a moment." I add pleadingly. Jinx narrows her eyes at me in a mixture of contempt and suspicion and folds her arms and looks at me, my eyes are drawn to her hand and I see the edge of the plaster on her palm peeking out at me.

"How's your hand? Did you get glass in it? I saw the blood." I ask feeling concern for her.

"I'm fine." She replies shortly. I open my mouth trying to find words to make her understand everything, to make her see how I feel, to make her forgive me, to make things right again. She clearly takes my silence for the end of the conversation and tries to push past me, I grab her arm quickly and stop her.

"I don't want this," I murmur into her shoulder, "I want things to be like they were."

"So did I," Jinx snaps pulling her arm out of my grasp, "but you screwed that up."

"I know I did. Just… let me make it right." I ask looking at her desperately, she needs to know how much I need this, how much I need her.

"You can't." She insists pulling away and walking down the hallway.

"I have to, just tell me how, name anything. Just ask me and I'll do it." I say trying to ignore the horrible similarity with our conversation on the hill that I was just so recently remembering.

"Go back in time and don't be an idiot." She mutters angrily as she jabs the button to her door. It whooshes open and I'm greeted with the scent that's completely Jinx, I can smell pencil shavings and paper, both sketch paper and from the mountain of books that she owns, I can smell what I can only guess is some kind of perfume.

"Please!" I beg grabbing for her arm again but she pulls away and steps into her room.

"I have a good reason! I'll tell you! Just please let me talk to you!" I cry out as she turns angrily on me and reaches for where I know the button on the inside of her room for the door is.

"I don't want to hear any more of your lies Kid, just leave me alone." She says dismissively.

"I had to! It was an emergency!" I shout as she angrily snaps the sliding door shut, nearly hitting me in the face in the process. I lean against the door and say everything that I thought I couldn't say, everything that I need to tell her. But I don't think she can hear me, I don't even think she cares now because I've ruined so spectacularly something that should have been so wonderful. Right now I don't think my life can get any worse.


	5. Chapter 5

_I'm going out,_

_To get my mind off you,_

_And I'll have a drink or two,_

_-Julia Nunes, Roles Reversed_

Kid Flash

I wander into Titan's tower, greeted by a warm blast of air and the futuristic whoosh of doors as they close behind me, I know that when they made that sound in Star Wars the sound guys were actually just sliding a piece of paper in and out of and envelope to create that sound, the future apparently is made of paper. I wonder if Cyborg has actually created doors that make that sound or if he's just making the doors play that sound. I dismiss the idea of asking him as I see him, Beast Boy and Robin on the sofa shouting at the computer game playing out on the giant TV before them. I look around quickly but I can't seem to locate Starfire, Raven or the girl I'm really looking for, Jinx. I zip quickly through the corridors of the tower, the roof and the training rooms but I can't see or hear any of them.

"Where-" I begin as I arrive back in the main room

"Not here." Robin answers before I can even finish my question.

"Where are they then?" I ask him as I tilt my head to the side curiously.

"Jinx has gone civvie, at least part time. She's moving into a place and Rae and Starfire are helping her move her stuff." Cyborg answers me without turning around to look at me. If Cyborg had muscles I'd have said they were tensed, he's not been especially cold with me since I came back except in circumstances when Jinx comes up in conversation when he becomes suddenly very tight lipped, saying only the bare factual minimum and not offering any opinions on either her or me or any combination thereof. I suppose I should be grateful that he's not offering his opinion on the matter but somehow the absence of such a thing seems just as annoying.

"She's still a Titan though right?" I ask worriedly. Robin looks up at me for a second and rolls his eyes at me.

"Don't you think I would have _told_ you if she quit? She just wants her own place. Goddamnit." Robin adds as his spaceship blows up on screen, Beast Boy cackles manically at this as Robin grumbles and restarts his character.

"Oh." I reply quietly. I can't help but wonder if this is because of me, if I've driven her away. I involuntarily start imagining where she could be staying, what she's doing and what she's thinking and feeling, I wonder if it'll be too close to the time when she moved in with me, if it'll stir up memories, if she'll miss me. I climb over the back of the sofa lethargically and sit between Beast Boy and Robin.

Beast Boy shoots a sidelong glance at me whilst half-heartedly defending his ship against Cyborg's, a few seconds later his ship explodes and he shrugs and leans back on the sofa whilst Robin frantically jabs at buttons on his with his lip between his teeth in concentration. I try to ignore the fact that Beast Boy's studying me and let the questions about Jinx roll through my head, about the fact that she thinks I'm a liar somehow, that she doesn't care or want to know why I left, about whether she's more angry or hurt, about whether she'll ever talk to me again. I remember Robin's dismissive attitude to my assertion that she'd come around eventually and wonder if he really does know her better than I do and what sort of things that says about my relationship with her. I have to consider the idea that I'm just over dramatising what was in reality a relationship that lasted only about a week, I've spent more time away from her since I met her than I have with her. But it doesn't feel like that, it doesn't feel like some trivial thing, it feels like I somehow missed the biggest and most important relationship of my life, and like I've screwed up and missed it altogether.

"You," Beast Boy announces, "have got it _bad_."

"What?" I blink snapping out of my reverie and looking at the green skinned changeling sitting next to me.

"For Jinx." He says in a 'duh' voice. I wince, it is pretty much a duh scenario, I have got it bad, the only problem is that the whole thing has gone wrong.

"I just don't get it, you disappear on her and from what she says and how it looked, you never cared about her. And that made sense. But you come back and you look like someone just destroyed your whole world, which doesn't make sense." He goes on, I flinch at that, does she really think that she meant so little to me? What is it that she said to them?

"B, it's nothing to do with us." Cyborg says in a voice that's clearly warning him to butt out of the whole situation, his spaceship has switched into idling and even Robin has stopped shooting at Cyborg and is just circling as he nonchalantly listens to our conversation so although both boys are still pretending to pay little attention to me I'm clearly suddenly the centre of attention.

"But it doesn't make sense!" Beast Boy says exasperated at Cyborg's reluctance to talk about the subject, it seems that his silence on the matter annoys more than just me, then.

"If you love her," he says turning back to me, "then why did you leave? And what's the problem when you've come back? If you love her then it shouldn't be a problem, especially with how messed up she got over you it's obvious that you mean a lot to her. So why aren't you two doing anything about it?" He points out.

"It's… not that simple, and I'm trying to do something about it." I say morosely.

"Just because you care for someone doesn't mean everything will magically work out, you know that Beast Boy." Robin chips in logically. Terra's name unspoken hovers in the air as the only sound is Robin destroying Cyborg's ship on the giant screen. Beast Boy's jaw clicks shut and he turns back to the screen clearly stung by Robin's unsaid barb.

"I'm going home, see you." I say quietly as I stand up from the sofa and zip back to my apartment, I ditch the uniform close to the complex and change into one of the many outfits I have stashed in inconspicuous waterproof containers around the city. I stare at my converse shoes as I follow the well worn path into my apartment complex, if only Beast Boy's idea that loving someone is enough was true, if I could just take every thought and feeling I've ever had for Jinx and put them in her head so she'd understand everything and we'd all be okay again. But it doesn't work that way, and with her moving out she's probably not going to be around the tower much outside of Titan business which only further reduces my chances of fixing the problem. I push my key into the door and shoulder the door to get the lock aligned so I can open it since the door was poorly fitted and won't open any other way. I take some comfort in the fact that even if someone ever did get a hold of my keys it'd be hard to get into my place without breaking the lock if you don't know that trick.

I kick the door shut behind me and drop my key back into my pocket, I toss my pager which doubles as my updater to both my job and to the Titan's messages across the room onto my sofa, it skids off and falls on the floor, I fail to care, as long as the damn thing isn't poking me in the back or the side when I lay down then I'm happy. In fact laying down sounds like a good idea as I walk over to my bed and fall down on the soft mattress. I bury my face in my pillow and suddenly feel homesick, I've not had any desire to live with my aunt and uncle permanently for years and I in fact spent the last few years that I did live there sneaking out to stop myself from going stir crazy. But a few home cooked meals and a soft shoulder to cry on sound pretty good, even if I would have to endure my uncle telling me that I shouldn't be concerning myself with such frivolities now that I'm a man and I should be concentrating on being a hero and nothing more. Which judging from how long he's been telling me that I've been a man since I was about thirteen, but the comforts of home still seem preferable to all this drama and heartbreak.

I get up off of my bed and decide that I need some maternal comfort, I rescue my pager from the floor on my way out as I head down to the laundry room where several middle-aged to old women often hang out, they all think I'm the sweetest boy alive so it's nice to see them occasionally. They're all predictably congregated there as I can tell from they're scandalous laughter echoing down the hall before I even get there.

"Hello you gorgeous lot." I grin as I stick my head through the door.

"Wally!" They all cry in unison. My face cracks into a smile, it's nice to be greeted so pleasantly as opposed to the coldness I've gotten from some lately.

"Where have you been hiding yourself then?" One of them, Doris, an elderly woman who I've learnt used to be a policewoman back in the day when they were considered little more than glorified secretaries and coffee-makers but as those who knew her back then would attest she helped crack a fair few cased and earned her place as a genuine officer, along with the respect of her male colleagues.

"Oh you know, work and stuff." I lie as another lady called Sue gives me a tight hug.

"You're such a responsible young man." Mary says proudly, she should be proud, she did after all get me the job that I have here as a civilian as a courier boy. Who doubtlessly since I let them know I was back this morning will have me running all over the city like a madman again.

"You look like you've got something pretty heavy weighing on your mind Wally, what's the matter?" the youngest woman, Jane asks me. She's taken me under her wing most of all since I've been here, she's a housewife with two young children and a third on the way so I suppose she sees me as just another child to mother, I'd be lying if I said I minded.

"Am I that much of an open book?" I laugh weakly as I sit down on the steps to the laundry room.

"Yes." They all answer in unison, I laugh and roll my eyes at them theatrically.

"Girl troubles." I answer with a sigh, all the ladies perk up at this clearly sensing incoming gossip.

"Oh?" Sue prompts me.

"We had a big misunderstanding, she hates me. I got my heart broken basically." I say not wanting to bring up any more painful feelings again today, I've spent enough time sobbing into pillows lately to not want to do it any more and much less in public.

"Oh poor boy." Jane says sympathetically.

"Ah, young love, it's so unpredictable. Is this the girl that you were all sappy over a few months ago?" Doris asks curiously.

"Yeah, she's the one." I sigh morosely.

"You know what the cure for a broken heart is don't you? You just need to get back on the horse." Sue suggests.

"I don't think she'd appreciate being called that!" Doris squawks and bursts into dirty laughter along with the other woman, Jane's pregnant belly bounces hypnotically as she laughs along with the rest of them. For a group of aging and innocent looking women they say some remarkably lewd things, I can feel my ears turning red in embarrassment at their comments.

"Aww, you're embarrassing him." Jane giggles pointing to the spreading redness across my face.

"Sue's right though, you should keep your eyes open, you might just run into your perfect woman sooner than you think." Mary intones mystically, she likes to perpetuate the idea that she's some sort of low level psychic. She does tarot card readings from time to time and to be fair to her she is right a little more than is statistically probable but I can hardly see myself willing to fall for another girl any time soon.

"Sure Mary, sure. I think maybe I'll just stay well away from horses all together in the future, the whole thing seems like far too much pain to be worth it." I sigh unhappily.

"You don't get a choice in the matter young man, if you're going to meet your soul mate you're going to meet them!" Mary insists firmly.

I feel the buzz of my pager on my back and I automatically reach around to get it, I check the screen and sure enough the courier company wants me running for them again asap.

"It seems my cruel taskmasters want me again so I'll have to bid you lovely ladies goodbye." I say standing up and giving them a courteous bow.

"I'll tell my brother you called him that." Mary laughs.

"Oh god please don't, I like running around the city but not _that_ much." I beg as I leave the room, the sound of happy laughter follows me down the hallway.

I run back to my room at what is a very leisurely pace for me, I grab my bag from inside my room and put on my company's hat, the only uniform I'm required to wear. Just as I'm putting on my bag the phone inside rings loudly, I flick it open in time to hear my boss shouting at someone nearby.

"I'm on my way." I assure him as I hold the phone away from my ear.

"If you're not here in five minutes you're fired! This is a HUGE account, if we screw this up they'll go elsewhere so move your skinny butt!" He shouts at me and hangs up violently. I feel the blood drain from my face, the office is across the other side of the city. I turn and run as fast as is possible for even a speedy human being on the high end of normal, losing my job is one thing but blowing my cover is quite another.

I skid past the silent laundry room and out into the open courtyard, I see the ladies waiting for me there, they love to see me run like a maniac as I invariably do whenever my boss calls like this. Mary laughs at me and I tilt my head to the side to stick my tongue out at her as I speed around the corner straight into someone.

I stumble to the floor and skid my arm painfully, my head snaps up at a rather impressive curse word and I see that I've knocked some poor girl clean over and thrown everything that she'd been holding across the whole courtyard.

"Oh my god I'm so sorry!" I exclaim jumping up.

"You're gonna be late boy!" Mary shouts after me and fear jumps through my veins.

"Sorry!" I call as I vault over her and past her two very angry looking friends.

Jinx

I stare after the fast disappearing boy who ran into me, he has red hair, of course he does. All the boys that cause me trouble do.

"JERK!" I shout after him. Raven in her disguise pulls me up to my feet and helps me dust myself off, the women in the middle of the courtyard have stopped laughing themselves sore and one of them picks up a few of my lost books on her way over to me.

"He's usually a very nice boy you know, I just knew you two would run into each other." She says handing my books to me.

"He was the one who ran into me, I didn't do anything." I huff indignantly.

"Of course, I'm Mary by the way, it's nice to meet you." She says shaking my hand.

"Come on, we're missing the show." Another woman says pulling on her sleeve, the Mary woman shoots me what I can only describe as a knowing smile as she leaves, although what she supposedly knows I have no idea.

"Nice place." Raven says flatly as she picks up my fallen jewellery box and my hairbrush and puts them into the box in my hands.

"I didn't pick it, Robin did." I say defensively, it's just typical, I find somewhere new to live and there are obnoxious boys here too. It's like some eternal punishment from some higher power, I wonder what I could have done to deserve such a curse but quickly decide to drop that line of thought before my conscience drowns me in countless reasons.

"I'm sure Robin picked a perfectly nice place." Starfire adds defending Robin as always, Raven quickly chides her for calling him Robin when she's meant to be in disguise. I ignore their bickering about whether or not Robin is a common earth name or not as I pick up my scattered possessions from the floor, after finally picking up a now chipped glass ball with a rose petal suspended inside of it which as much as I hate to admit it I got made from one of the flowers that Kid Flash gave me after he disappeared on me, this was of course before I realised that he either wasn't coming back or that I wouldn't like what I got when he did. I scan the courtyard one more time but I can't see anything else of mine and from what I can see.

"Come on." I say hefting the box onto my hip and Starfire and Raven stop their bickering to follow me with their own boxes in tow. I follow the room numbers in the hallways until I come to the one that matches my key, hesitantly I open the door and the sight of a clean but unusually built apartment greets me.

"A wardrobe by the bathroom, tell me, is this normal on your earth culture?" Starfire asks looking at the wardrobe.

"No… that's pretty weird actually." I say staring at the built in wardrobe by the bathroom door, I turn and stare at the nice bright windows and it takes me second or two to realise that I forgot to buy any curtains for this place. I curse my stupidity and vow to go out and buy some tomorrow but for the meantime I'll have to deal with letting the moonlight and sunrise in whether I want to or not. The place is pretty basic, I know it's one of the cheapest places that this complex does but still, it's somewhere that's mine, somewhere that can't be invaded by people, where I'm safe from _him_.

Kid Flash

I trudge back into the courtyard of the apartment complex exhausted but thankfully still employed, I remember running into that girl in this very spot, I really hope that I didn't hurt her at all. I feel bad that I didn't have time to pick her up and make sure she was okay. I take another step forward and feel something bounce off of my shoe, I look down to see a small black thing skidding away across the paving slabs. I quickly snag it from the ground and stare at what appears to be some ugly weird little statue made out of some kind of black rock that feels unnervingly cold in my hand, I squint at it but can't for the life of me make out what it's supposed to be.

"That must be that girl's, she must have dropped it when you ran into her." Mary says as she appears out of what seems like thin air.

"Ack!" I yelped feeling startled, in my surprise the statue flies out of my hand and it's only through a series of frantic and ungraceful swipes in the air that I manage to grab it before it hits the ground. Mary smiles at me in a manner that I've come to regard as suspicious as I clutch the saved ornament to my chest.

"You should keep it on you, you'll probably run into her again soon enough, she's moved in here." She says in a voice that I know better than to argue with. I pocket the ugly statue and make my way back to my room, when I get there I throw myself onto the sofa and click on my TV and watch the news. For heroes the news is something between research and a celebrity magazine, you can spot crime sprees and predict the moves of notable criminals and since there too are always numerous news reports on the actions of various heroes both praiseworthy and humiliating the whole thing can be hilarious when you know those people in real life. I remember Robin mercilessly teasing Speedy after the news ran an article about him having to be rescued by the fire brigade in a cherry picker after one of his arrows backfired and he ended up netting himself up on the side of a skyscraper. Thankfully for me my stupid moments tend to be over at super speed and if anyone does manage to spot them I'm usually gone before cameras can appear, there's little need to wish the ground would swallow you whole when you can be in Mexico in ten minutes avoiding people.

"It seems that the latest addition to the Titans team is lying somewhat low lately, little has been seen or heard from Jinx the former HIVE five member since Kid Flash reappeared in town." The newscaster began. My eyes widen as pictures of both Jinx and myself scroll across the screen, I sit upright and watch the news with a sense of dread overwhelming me.

"Aside from a small fight with Cinderblock sightings of the fledgling hero have been sparse indeed, this reporter can't help but wonder if she's lying low since the return of Kid Flash. Rumours of their apparently short lived relationship are flaring up again and the big question at the moment is 'are they or aren't they?' The two were seen arguing quite loudly after a fight with Cinderblock, is this a lovers tiff or a rift forming within the additional Titans? That's all we have for tonight's hero news." The reporter nods as the screen switches to the weather. I sit there in horror for a second or two before a loud crash snaps me out of my comatose state, it sounds like a bomb just went off in the middle of the courtyard. I stand up and look out of the window to see the two of the three girls from earlier looking out of a window down at a smashed TV set, I guess that one of them must have slipped whilst carrying it and it fell out of the window. She's certainly not going to be watching that TV again, all that remains of it is a pile of twisted plastic and glass on the floor three stories down. I wonder if Jinx had been watching TV herself just a moment ago, if she had I'd bet that she'd be furious. Suddenly the news programme doesn't seem nearly as amusing and I wonder what bit of small print I overlooked that said the news could make my private life a spectacle when I signed up to be a hero. I know Jinx wouldn't have agreed to that, she was a very private person from the beginning, you only ever knew about her what she let you, so she'd certainly be less than pleased to see her life smeared across the tube for all to see.

I contemplate calling the tower to find out if they did see it but think better of it, Robin doesn't like being pestered. I figure that maybe I should do some work to get my mind off of things instead, I know Robin wanted us to communicate with Titan's East about other villain anomalies like the one with Cinderblock so I think I should swing by there.

A quick costume change and a run across water and I'm at the distinctly more high tech Titan's East Tower, I knock on the door and lean on the frame and wait to be let in. Not that I couldn't get in on my own but my Uncle always taught me that you should knock and wait a little before bursting in on people. Bumblebee opens the door and looks at me with a look of surprise in her big eyes.

"Oh, it's you." She says blinking at me.

"Expecting someone else?" I grin at her wondering if she was hoping that I was Cyborg coming to see her.

"I- no. Come in." She says stepping aside and leaving the doorway open, I grin at her and walk in. I instantly make eye contact with Mas y Menos and I can see the unspoken challenge there, they want a race.

"Maybe later guys." I laugh holding up my hands defensively before turning back to Bumblebee who's already making her way to the sofa in the middle of the room where the TV is paused, a part of my brain notes the attractive sway of her hips as she moves and another part kicks me with guilt for even noticing. After all Jinx and I have barely ended our relationship and my mind's already wandering.

"Hey, maybe you could help us with this." Bumblebee says falling back on the sofa and resting her feet on the table as she points at the screen before her. I glance at it as I follow her, it's a frozen image of Cinderblock from a CCTV camera. Behind us both is a large pool of water, Aqualad is inside it and leaning against the edge watching the TV screen himself, across the room is Speedy helping himself to a rather substantial bag of potato chips as he leans against the kitchen counter. I figure I must have walked in on some group research of the video so I guess I had better help her.

"Sure." I nod sitting down next to her on the sofa.

"We're trying to see if it really is him, we thought it was before but I wanna be as sure as I can." She says playing the tape, I get her meaning. She's the leader of this group and she doesn't want to make a fool of herself to Robin, she wants to prove that she can investigate as well as he can. I turn my eyes to the tape, it runs slower for me than it does for her, after all my brain can process information faster than she can so my eyes are better at spotting things than hers would be. I frown, I can't see any signs that this isn't Cinderblock, no signs of a costume or of it being some kind of robot duplicate. I don't remember seeing anything like that on the Cinderblock I fought either but then my attention wasn't particularly on him at the time. I get a shiver as I remember her falling back into my arms.

"So… you and Jinx." Bumblebee says as if reading my mind, she looks at me out of the corner of her eyes.

"Don't want to talk about it." I say flatly without removing my eyes from the screen.

"She seemed pretty raw about it when I saw her, last I heard you two were together and you'd managed to get her to our side. What happened?" Bumblebee asks ignoring my previous statement.

"I'm not talking about it." I growl at her, this is the very thing I wanted to avoid by coming her and yet the whole idea of Jinx has followed me here, it seems like no matter how fast I run I can't escape thoughts of her.

"Okay, eesh. All I wanted to say is that I'm much happier she's on our side now than with the HIVE." She says defensively. This makes me smile slightly.

"She's completely suited to being a hero, she was wasting herself with the HIVE five. She's perfect for this." I say softly. And I mean every word, Jinx is so much better off being a hero and even if she hates me now she's happy with the Titans, she has friends and people who respect her, she's thriving here. So regardless of the train wreck that is this whole situation I'd still bring her to the Titans all over again if I could go back, I would however stop myself from screwing up what was possibly the best thing that ever happened to me.

"You really love her…" Bumblebee murmurs apparently reading whatever expression had been wandering across my face at the thought of her.

"It doesn't matter." I say looking away from her as she stares at me in wonder.

"It does, she was clearly really torn up about the pair of you when I saw her and if you love her then what's the problem? Why aren't you two together?" Bumblebee demands grabbing my arm, I pull away from her and stand up. Has some memo gone out to the Titans about questioning me about Jinx? Can't I go anywhere without my failure being rubbed in my face?

"I don't want to talk about Jinx okay?" I state irritated. I certainly don't want to talk about why we can't be together, I don't want to talk about why I left and I don't want to talk about how much she hates me. A dirty laugh makes my head snap up to see Speedy with a look on his face that I certainly don't like the look of.

"Man, I'd like to do more to her than just talk. Jinx is _hot_." He laughs jumping on the sofa and grinning lopsidedly at me. I glare at him, the very idea of him so much as touching her makes me want to punch his face in.

"I think Kid would kill you before you even got close, so dream on Speedy." Bumblebee snorts at him.

"I wouldn't need to do a thing, Jinx is perfectly capable of turning you into a smoking heap on the floor." I hiss at him, he laughs at this clearly confident that she'd do no such thing. I shake my head at this and turn my back on him, he doesn't know a thing about her.

"I'm going. Good luck with that tape, there's nothing worthwhile on it." I say over my shoulder to Bumblebee before speeding off back to my apartment, I change before I get there and when I walk into the complex I notice that the moving van has gone. I look out of my window when I get back to see the girl there arranging small ornaments on her windowsill. She reaches down into the box by her side and suddenly a panic stricken look comes across her face, she pulls the box up to her and franticly rifles through it with a desperate look on her face. I smile at this, moving somewhere is always so stressful, you can never find things in the boxes that they're supposed to be in.


	6. Chapter 6

_Let it never be said, the romance is dead_

_Cause there's so little else occupying my head_

_There is nothing I need except the function to breathe_

_But I'm not really fussed, doesn't matter to me._

_Ruby – Kaiser Chiefs _

Kid Flash

"Jinx?" I call in the empty main room of Titans tower, I know she should be in here but I can't find her. Starfire and Raven sit on the sofa ignoring me. Suddenly there she is walking through the door all slinky walk and impossibly long stripy legs. She's laughing and for a second I close my eyes and revel in that magical sound but I open my eyes and see that she's got her arm around Speedy who's laughing too with his mouth twisted into a disgusting lecherous grin that makes me want to rip his face off for pointing it at Jinx. He leans in and whispers something in her ear, she flushes bright red and laughs with her eyes sparkling, I don't even want to imagine what he said to her. Robin opens the door behind her and beams as he enters the room and slides his arms around her sides in a snakelike way. She gasps in surprise and he laughs and bites her neck, she leans her head back and smiles up at him while resting her head on his shoulder with a hand in his hair. I gawp at the scene before me, none of them have so much as seen me yet but Speedy shows no surprise or even annoyance at Robin's behaviour and he in fact takes the opportunity to lean back and admire the view of Jinx arched back against my best friend.

Former best friend I note as he kisses her.

Speedy notices me finally and sees my furious expression, he shrugs at me as if to say 'what?' like he's so innocent and not getting off with the love of my life right in front of me and apparently sharing her with Robin too! As if Jinx was just some… some THING that could be shared out. Jinx notices Speedy's expression as her and Robin part lips and her gloriously pink eyes slide over in my direction and she gives me a lazy smile and tilts Robin's jaw in my direction. He at least has the decency to look slightly guilty.

"Hey man…" He smiles weakly. It takes me a second or two to reply because I'm so speechless with anger. How could he possibly do this to me? How could she? Don't they care about my feelings? About my life? About my trust in them? And Robin, after all that we've been through how could he DO this to me? He knows how I'd feel in this sort of situation!

"SCREW YOU!" I scream back at him all bottled up fury and incandescent rage.

"Believe me I have." Jinx laughs herself as she straightens up with a ripple in her spine, she shashays over to me with a feline smile on her face.

"How could you?" I choke at her already feeling my face is wet from overflowing tears. She rolls her eyes and laughs slightly as if bored with a stupid child.

"Sweetie, you were _gone_ what did you expect me to do? Pine endlessly for you?" She says with a patronising little laugh.

"You- you…" I stammer feeling like my heart's been ripped out.

"Hey, don't be like that," Speedy says wrapping his arms around her and looking at me over her shoulder, "I can always share if you want her back." He grins and swipes her neck with his tongue.

I jerk awake with my heart racing and my hand clenched in my covers. My breathing slows, it was just a dream, just an awful dream. I groan and rub my head as I lay back down on my bed, the Jinx in my dream was terrible but she had a point just as I imagine the real Jinx does. I did leave and I was stupid to imagine that I could come back and find things the same. She's changed. Things have changed. I stare at the ceiling that's illuminated by the moonlight shining through my open window, I sit up and realise that actually my room is too bright for it just to be moonlight.

I look out of my window and see that the light is coming from the apartment windows across the way, I see a girl with black hair sitting on her windowsill drawing. I sit up in the dark and watch her as her pencil flies over the paper, I smile at this, it's almost soothing to watch and makes me feel calmer after my nightmare, Jinx never let me watch her draw. She'd show me what she'd drawn afterwards if I asked nicely but she'd never let me watch her draw, to her it was too intimate, too private. This girl though is drawing away barely any distance for me, she looks so serene, so calm, almost Zen like. She's the same girl who moved in yesterday which I unfortunately ran over on my way to work. I rest my head on my knees and watch her as her eyes scan my side of the building in between pencil strokes, I feel suddenly isolated and wish that it was Jinx I was watching rather than my anonymous neighbour. I roll over in my bed and see the small ugly and indecipherable statue sitting there on my bedside table, I must remember to return it to that girl next time I see her. The brief idea of dropping around now springs to mind but then how to explain such a thing? _Oh hi, I was just watching you through my windows as I sat alone in the dark and remembered to give you back your ornament_. Yeah, I can see that going really well.

I throw my arm over my eyes and try and go back to sleep and hope for a dreamless sleep.

_I'mma do the things that I wanna do,_

_I ain't got a thing to prove to you._

_I'll eat my candy with the pork and beans,_

_Excuse my manners if I make a scene,_

_I ain't gonna wear the clothes that you like,_

_I'm fine and dandy with the me inside_

_Pork and Beans – Weezer_

Jinx

I finish my drawing of the building or what I can see of it from my window, I lay my sketchpad down and glance at the clock. My eyes widen when I see that it's three am, I didn't think that I'd been drawing that long but tonight I'd been feeling more creative than I have in the whole time since I've been a Titan. I bought a whole new sketchpad before I moved here and left my sketchpads of the duration that I knew Kid Flash back at the tower, some things don't belong in my new place. Nevertheless this sketchpad is almost half full, I've filled it with drawings of people, studies of my own hands, the intricate design of my room, the ocean in the moonlight and last of all the half of the apartment complex that I can see from my window. I sigh happily, I know now that it was the right thing to do to move here, I feel freed from my demons, from the haunting memories of _him_ echoing in every corner and shadow.

But still I know I should go to bed, I've still got to be a Titan tomorrow morning and that requires me to be alert and awake. I go to sleep wondering what tomorrow will bring and how exactly I should keep my team-mates sweet.

On my way to the tower the next morning, now fully in costume, I decide to pick up some doughnuts. Maybe actual sugar will keep my friends sweet on me despite my behaviour lately, I know it must be a nightmare on Robin having to deal with the chaos that Kid Flash and I have brought upon him with our drama. Even though it's all his fault I still should try to make amends. The man behind the counter smiles at me as he hands me the largest box they have (after all, Cyborg and Beast Boy will be eating these, so I want a few left for the rest of us!) when I go to give him the money he holds up his hands in protest and shakes his head at me.

"Free of charge, any Titan is welcome in my store." The man smiles at me.

"Better not let Cyborg hear you say that or he'll clean you out." I laugh as I take the free box from him. I call a grateful thank you to him as I leave the door and walk down the street with a giant grin on my face, I love being a Titan. Not for the free stuff though, I like it for the way people look at you, they don't look and see trouble, they look and see a hero there, they see someone they want to know, they see someone they respect. From someone who used to think that fear and respect were the same it's certainly nice to not see fear on people's faces anymore now that I know the difference.

"Hiii!" I chime happily as I stroll through the doors of the tower with the doughnuts held aloft, "I come bearing sugary treats!" I add as people look up.

"You look sickeningly cheerful." Raven notes dryly as she looks up from her book at me with an eyebrow arched wryly at me.

"Missed you too sunshine." I say sticking my tongue out at her as I pass. As I place the box on the kitchen table I feel rather than hear Kid Flash show up behind me.

"What is that thing about beware of Greeks bearing gifts again?" He says brushing his arm past me to flick the box open and snag one.

"It's a doughnut not a Trojan horse, and who said they were for you?" I shoot back as I turn around and make a swipe for the doughnut in his hand but he moves too quickly for me as always and quickly devours the whole thing in under a second, not in a grotesque stuffing his mouth full way but rather just eating at high speed. He looks back at me with a big pleased grin on his face, I realise after a second that he's a bit too close but his glowing face is hypnotising to me. His tongue flicks out to lick the powdered sugar and at first I'm angry because I think he's trying to flirt with me again but a quick look into his eyes and I can see that his behaviour is entirely unconscious. What precisely that says about his nature I don't want to know.

"Well it's good you brought a lot with you, Titan's east are here to discuss their theories on the case." Robin says behind me. I turn my back on Kid Flash and see Bumblebee watching me from the other side of the room with a smirk on her face, I frown at her feeling confused but for some reason this only seems to make her grin wider at me.

We make our way to the briefing room which is again looping the two simultaneous videos of our respective teams fighting Cinderblock, we all gather around the table with Cyborg entering last carrying the doughnuts and predictably already stuffing them in his face with Beast Boy nipping at his heels trying to steal one before they're all gone. Kid Flash leans on the table next to me and looks at me for a second as the others file in behind us, he takes a breath as if to say something but I guess something in my eyes makes him stop and click his jaw shut. As he leaves my side to go stand at the other side of the table his brow is furrowed and his eyes downcast, I try and suppress the urge to find out what's wrong with him.

"So, theories." Robin says at the head of the table. Robin's the kind of person who can stand at a circular table and still be at the head of it, he's not one of these people who stands at a table, grins and claps their hands together and calls everyone there 'people'. He's a natural leader and as a former leader myself I respect that, I find it easier than I thought I would to follow him and his orders especially considering as he used to be the guy giving the orders for bringing me down.

"We've determined that neither video seems to show any signs of either of them being in a Cinderblock costume or any signs of either of them being some kind of robot made to look like him." Bumblebee states assertively, Robin nods at this.

"I'll agree with Bee there, I can't see any signs of tech there." Cyborg says seconding her idea.

"So, if we know what he's not do we have any idea what it is?" Robin asks us all.

"Alien clones!" Beast Boy blurts out, I don't even have to look up to see the team rolling their eyes at him.

"No! Listen, they sneak down here and clone us as a way to infiltrate us and learn more about us! This could have been going on for months without us catching two of the same person in the same place!" Beast Boy adds.

"Beast Boy-" Robin sighs in the voice of one who has long suffered Beast Boy's outlandish theories mostly influenced by horror films, just last week we had a case where he was convinced that zombies were doing it.

"Cloning would make sense, it'd explain why the two Cinderblocks were identical. Although I highly doubt that aliens did it." Raven says in a way that could almost be taken as defending him if it weren't for the last sentence being a big put down on Beast Boy.

"Says you alien girl, it could so be aliens!" Beast Boy retorts, Raven shoots him a dark look at that comment. It's the kind of look that promises pain in his near future, Beast Boy winces at that look and glances away.

"Hm, I don't think it's cloning. It takes an awful lot of time and research to do successful cloning, especially on life forms as unstable as meta-humans. It would have taken months and months at least and I heard or felt no inclinations of the sort on any of the kind of people within a few hundred miles of here capable of that sort of thing. If something like that had been going down I would have known about it." I say with certainty. I knew the kind of people who were the go to guys for anything you wanted for anything high tech and most of them are in the habit of letting me in on the info about who's buying what, I'm betting that with a bit of financial incentive they'd still be happy to do so, I make a mental note to pay a visit to a few of my old friends with some cash to double check.

"I'm with Jinx on this, we need to start considering possible dimension rifts and time travel." Robin states.

"Okay, but if you were to invent a time machine why send one of the world's dumbest villains through it? Why would you do that?" Kid Flash frowns at this.

"You never heard of a meat shield Kid? You send in the stupid or indestructible, or in Cinderblock's case both, first to make sure it's okay. He's nothing but cannon fodder." I explain this very obvious point, he really can be slow sometimes.

"What? That's terrible!" He exclaims aghast, he looks at me like I'd just suggested killing kittens.

"No, it's smart." I correct him unimpressed with his silly moral values.

"It's a bit of both, but you're probably right Jinx, Cinderblock is most likely just a test subject, which unfortunately implies that more doubles will be appearing soon." Robin says worriedly.

"So we need to keep looking and trying to figure out where these doubles are coming from." Aqua lad nods solemnly.

"Raven, we need you to keep your eye on sensing dimensional rifts that these things could be coming from. Cyborg and Jinx we need you to figure out just what kinds of things someone would need for cloning and figure out if any have been moving to suspicious persons. Bumblebee I need you to get the authorities in on this, we're going to need as much information as possible to find doubles. Starfire… keep an eye on space just in case Beast Boy is actually onto something." Robin says looking at us all in turns.

The meeting starts to break up after that and it's only when Speedy sits himself practically on the table in front of me with a curious looking smile on his face.

"You know…" he says slowly as he looks up at me, "it's good we have you on our side."

"Oh?" I ask suspiciously. I don't think I've ever even spoken to him before today, although I've seen him in passing before and yet he's talking to me like he knows me, like we're old friends. I frown slightly, is this the friendliness that comes with being a Titan? Like the man in the doughnut shop?

"Well you're the best of both worlds aren't you? You were such an esteemed villain, you know all the things they know but now you're with us and you're making the best of being a hero but you're still keeping as smart as a villain. So I'm glad you're with us." Speedy says smiling at me.

"Well… I'm glad to be here. It's certainly better than the alternative." I agree with a nod.

"So, I hear you're pretty good in hand to hand combat and distance stuff too. I'd like to see that sometime." He says with a broad smile.

"I could kick your ass any day." I smile back at him flashing my teeth in a way that I know unnerves most people.

"I might just take you up on that." He says quietly. Suddenly Kid Flash slams his fist on the table as he walks past us out of the room, I jump at this, I'd managed to forget that he was there. I look at Speedy and instead of looking startled he has a devious grin on his face as he watches Kid Flash stalk off.

"What's that all about?" I murmur feeling confused. Despite his speed Kid was never one to loose his temper quickly.

Kid Flash

_Too far to turn around  
So I'm gonna stand my ground  
Gimme just a little bit of hope  
With a smile or a glance, gimme one more chance_

_Hey Juliet – LMNT_

I'm pacing the roof of the tower furiously, probably scuffing a loop in it's shiny surface. That scene in the meeting room was horrifyingly close to my dream last night, I shudder as the images of Speedy all over her play over in my head again. But the look on Speedy's face, his silky words, his closeness to her and the way she didn't react badly or push him away but in fact she almost seemed pleased at his attention. I growl to myself and run a hand through my hair, I can't loose her, especially not to him. I know exactly what he wants out of her and I can't stand that. It's one thing to have her hate me for now, but if she moves on to someone else then all my hopes for resolving things between us will go up in smoke. Not to mention the fact that I know exactly what being used and dropped immediately would do to her, she'd be a wreck, she'd hate herself for it and beat herself up for being stupid enough to let herself get into that sort of situation.

I force myself to stop and close my eyes, I take a deep shaky breath. I have to talk to her, I have to warn her.

I speed downstairs and run into Jinx talking to Robin in the hallway, I jerk to a halt as memories of my dream flash before my eyes again. Jinx is talking softly and I can't hear what she says, Robin nods and Jinx sighs and tugs on the edges of her fringe and twirls a piece around her finger. Jinx glances to the side and spots me as I walk closer, her arm drops uncomfortably to her side and she steps away slightly.

"Ah- I'll let you two talk." She says and turns to leave. I reach out suddenly and brush her arm with my fingers.

"I wanted to talk to you." I say simply. Jinx doesn't say anything at this but gives me an inscrutable look, Robin glances between us and quickly makes himself scarce.

"What is it?" She asks as soon as Robin is out of earshot. I sigh and try and think how to phrase this in a way that won't make her hex me and storm off and declare yet again that she hates me.

"I just wanted to warn you." I say slowly. Jinx arches her brow at this.

"Warn me?" She asks me in a voice that dances between suspicious and intrigued.

"About Speedy." I finish quietly. She frowns at this and folds her arms against her body, a sign that this is already going badly.

"What? You don't think I can handle myself against him in a fight?" She asks as a threatening glow starts to build in her pink irises, I laugh at this. The idea of Jinx being some helpless damsel in distress is incredibly comical, she's not the kind of girl that needs rescuing or saving or needs a strapping hero figure to sweep her away form danger.

"Hardly, I warned him that you could kick his ass six ways to Sunday when I saw him yesterday." I grin at her, a devious grin spreads across her own gorgeous lips at this, I realize that this is probably the first shared smile we've had since I've been back.

"So what's the problem?" She asks with the smile still there. My eyes sink to the ground at this, I've no idea how she'll take this information.

"It's Speedy, I heard him talking last night. About you. He was being pretty… crude, he's… it's just how he was today. Talking with you I mean." I say desperate to make this sound right.

"What precisely was he saying about me?" Jinx frowns, I can see that she's worried that other Titans are badmouthing her, she was always worried about not fitting in here.

"Nothing like that," I say answering her unspoken question, she relaxes slightly at that but the puzzled expression returns, "he… was being crude in the sense of… telling me and the rest of the Titans East how he wanted to get his hands on you." I mutter feeling my ears turn red under my suit.

"And why are you telling _me_ this?" Jinx asks with a glare.

"Wh- because he's only interested in one thing! You didn't hear the things he was saying!" I insist, how can she not get this?

"And I don't think you did either! I think you're making this whole thing up!" Jinx snaps at me as she pokes me in the chest, her eyes are starting to give a dangerous glow now but I can't just leave it at this, I can't let her think I'm lying, although why on earth she'd think that is beyond me.

"Why would I lie? I'm trying to warn you here!" I exclaim, she snorts and shakes her head at this.

"Because you're trying to manipulate me, we're not together Kid, even if Speedy was interested in me, which I doubt he is, it's none of your business. You're not my boyfriend so you're not allowed to be jealous." She says angrily.

"I'm not jealous and I'm not lying." I mutter looking away. Her words sting me, I know I'm not her boyfriend and I know as she's repeatedly told me that it's my fault, but I wouldn't lie to her. It hurts that she thinks so little of me to lie, and I wonder if I feel protective because I care or protective because I am jealous or I wish I was the one who could flirt with Jinx so fearlessly without worrying about being shouted at.

"Whatever." She snaps as she turns away from me and stomps off in her giant boots.

I slink down to the living room and fold myself up on the sofa next to Robin who sits surrounded by a pile of papers and folders, my eyes shift across the room to Speedy who's currently mocking Aqualad mercilessly, I hope that if I glare at him hard enough he'll die.

"Last I checked you don't have laser beams in your eyes so cut it out before you strain something." Robin says as he licks his thumb and turns a page in his file. Speedy notices me out of the corner of his eye and flashes a nasty grin at me clearly well aware of why I'm so angry and why I stormed out of the meeting room the way I did.

Behind me I hear familiar stomping of boots, I guess Jinx took a detour somewhere before coming here because I didn't run, she shouts across the room to Speedy clearly well aware of my presence.

"Hey Speedy, you think you're tougher than me? Let's go, I'm in the mood to beat the living daylights outta something." She shouts to him, I sink lower in the sofa and try and tuck my head behind Robin's arm so my face is buried in his back. I can't hear Speedy's reply as it's thankfully muffled through the folds of Robin's cape and back but I can pick up the slimy lecherous tone disguised as coolness. I hear them leave and whimper into Robin's back, it's a testament to how bad he knows I feel that he doesn't make some dismissive remark and pull me out from behind his back. Eventually I feel a little better and sit up, Bumblebee gives me a sympathetic look, clearly living with Speedy gives her some insight into my problem, Starfire looks at me questioningly as she wasn't there for Speedy's sickening display, Raven quite pointedly looks angry with me and doesn't make eye contact.

Robin lets out a small sigh and looks at me, I know exactly what he wants to say and I don't want to hear it.

"I know, okay?" I mutter, he shrugs at this clearly aware that he's not going to change my mind.

I lean back against the sofa and pretend to watch TV with Beast Boy as thoughts of Jinx as Speedy roll through my mind incessantly. I feel rather than hear Jinx approaching ten minutes later, the air feels just like it does when a storm is about to break, crackly, tense and almost oily. Jinx bursts into the room, pink lightning streaking behind her as she looms towards us. I catch sight of her eyes, they're glowing so much that not only is it impossible to make out any iris or pupil detail but the glow is so bright that you can't even distinguish her eyelids, there's just a burning light where her eyes should be. Beast Boy's ears flatten in fear as she moves past us and towards Cyborg.

"Go scrape the pervert off of the gym floor, I think I broke a few bones." She growls at Cyborg. Robin and Cyborg jump up at this, Robin looks at Jinx angrily.

"You're coming with, let's go Cyborg." Robin orders as he turns to leave not even checking to see if Jinx and Cy are following him because of course they are, Robin gives an order in that voice and you can't do anything but do as he says. The rest of us leave it a second or two before running after to see, by the time we get there at a safe distance from the others we can hear the three guys shouting.

"Jinx! What the hell!" Cyborg shouts surprise ringing in his voice.

"God! MY FACE!" Speedy's muffled voice shouts. We round the corner to see Speedy held up on Robin's shoulder holding his nose which appears to be gushing a dangerously large amount of blood, his uniform is burnt and at least one of his legs doesn't seem to be working, I feel the grin spread across my face.

"He grabbed me!" Jinx snaps in her defense.

"That doesn't mean you can-" Cyborg begins with a frown,

"No, he _grabbed_ me." Jinx says with emphasis on the word. Cyborg's eyes widen at this, he looks at Jinx and apparently that's all the confirmation he needed.

"Guess you got what was coming to you then…" Cyborg murmurs looking at Speedy. Cyborg picks him up from Robin's side and carries him towards the infirmary.

"I'll talk to him Jinx." Robin says looking at her with obvious anger at Speedy on his face.

"Talk to _her_! Crazy bitch!" Speedy shouts as Cyborg carries him away.

"I think I want to be far away when that conversation happens." Raven states after a second or two, I'm watching Jinx so closely that I barely hear Raven speak. Jinx's fists are clenched and shaking, but not from how hard she's clenching, she's shaking because she's… scared. Her eyes stay fixed on the hallway that Speedy was just carried down as if he might come back. Beast Boy says something and he and Raven depart with a swish of cloak that jerks me back to reality as it brushes my leg when she turns.

"Jinx-" Starfire begins with concern ringing in her voice.

"I want to be alone." Jinx says quickly without even looking at her. Starfire's hand is caught halfway between her and Jinx, frozen in the air. Her mouth closes slowly and she nods slightly to herself and withdraws her hand and walks off silently, I guess she has the luxury of knowing that Jinx will come to her when she's ready. That's not however a luxury I have, I need to say something to her but nothing seems to work. I shouldn't have left him with her, but if I say that she'll think I'm possessive and don't think she can defend herself, which isn't true, I know she can defend herself but I didn't ever want her to be in the position to have to. I think about asking her if she wants me to drop him in the arctic but she'd not take that well either. Her shoulders tense and she still doesn't look at me but she certainly knows I'm here.

"I'm sorry." I say eventually because nothing else seems to work.

"I bet you're pretty goddamn smug right now aren't you? You warned me, so it's my fault right?" She snaps and I smell the ozone smell of frying air as her powers hiss on her skin.

"Hardly. I would rather I wasn't right to be honest." I mutter, I wish I'd been wrong. I wish he'd just seen her as a friend in the making, as someone to spar with, seen her like she saw him. Jinx seems to relax ever so slightly, she lets out a shaky breath and closes her eyes tight.

"I'm going to my room." She states. I nod, I know better than to follow her after something like this. As she passes she flashes me the smallest of weary smiles. I wonder if she's starting to forgive me and then hate myself for even thinking of my own love life after Jinx has just been… attacked like that.


	7. Chapter 7

_We'll agree to disagree,_

_Woe is me, woe is thee,_

_It's all for show, so please call this number,_

_You'll never know, and you'll always wonder_

_Pomplamoose – beat the horse_

Kid Flash

_I walk down the dark road empty of people, all but her of course. She's been walking behind me for a while now, not in a stalking way but just a step behind me to my side so she's just out of my peripheral vision. For all our witty banter about her protecting me by staying with me we seem to have fallen silent on the walk back to my place, I feel somehow that she doesn't want this situation to be any more intense or weird than it already is so I don't look at her, I don't talk and the silence continues. It's only when I don't hear her footsteps any more that I look and speak._

"_Jinx?" I ask. She's looking at my feet instead of me and her hands are shaking slightly, she seems tensed like a coiled spring, ready to explode._

"_How do I know this isn't a trap?" She demands suddenly, her voice made of fire and steel._

"_It's not." I assure her as I step closer to her, her eyes blaze as they snap up to mine._

"_Says you, this could be some plot to turn me over to the cops or the league!" She exclaims pointing a finger at me._

"_You didn't turn me over, don't you think I'd return the favour?" I point out. Her jaw tenses and a muscle along her cheek tightens momentarily, I wonder if she regrets that decision or if she's just scared. Thinking of it now I see that she does look scared, her voice has that tremor of fear in it, her body is tensed all ready for fight or flight and I'd bet that everything in her mind is screaming at her to get out of here._

"_You can't know that this isn't a trap," I begin quietly trying not to spook her, she flinches at this apparently reading my statement as a confirmation that it IS a trap._

"_you just have to trust me. I promise it's not." I add earnestly, she shakes her head at me._

"_I can't trust anyone, not even you." She asserts, my heart skips a little at the notion that I'm special to her somehow._

"_Trust me." I say with a smile as I hold my hand out like I did yesterday for her, she smiles slightly despite herself although her hand is still caught halfway as it was when she tricked me. I push that thought out of my mind, I don't want to admit how underneath the banter I was crushed that she was playing me. But the words then were too cliché, her movements too exaggerated, whereas now she looks really torn._

_She laughs suddenly and the whole world seems brighter instantly, my arm flags a little in shock and I realise how absolutely stunning she is when she smiles._

"_You're a dork." Jinx smiles shaking her head. I smile back at her unable to stop myself and straighten my arm again offering my hand to her, she chuckles slightly and takes my hand. We walk the rest of the way back like that although she does add quietly after taking my hand that if this __**is**__ a trap she will kill me. I only release her elegant little hand when we get to my door and I have to unlock it with the key in my boot, I glance over to her more out of habit than reason to see her watching me closely as if she's drinking in every detail about me. My door opens and she tenses slightly as if expecting the members of the justice league to jump out and yell surprise and then arrest her, but after a second she cautiously steps in. She paces around the small apartment carefully, her eyes taking in every detail about the place before settling on the sofa to take off her boots quietly. I smile to myself as I follow her to the sofa and sit down next to her, my little stray seems to have found a home. She ruffles her pink fringe and in the moonlight the colour looks glorious, I want to touch it and tell her that it's brilliant and perfect just like her but I stop myself, afraid to startling her or freaking her out._

I wake from my memory and remember how beautiful she looked when she smiled at me, how perfect her laugh was, how I somehow seemed to be in love with her from the moment I saw her. I wish that I'd never stopped myself from saying it the first time, stopped myself from telling her that she was beautiful, that she was perfect. My heart sinks as I know I'll never be able to say it properly to her like I should have and how I foolishly wasted the opportunities I had, ungratefully thinking that there would be more. I sigh and lean my head back against the door to my apartment and wish that things could be different, or at least that my life could suck a little less right now.

_Stop wondering through my mind_

_As you once were_

_Start hoping that I'll come back_

_When you're the last man on earth_

_Pomplamoose – Expiration date_

Jinx

_It's already late when we arrive at his apartment and I feel that we have too little time there before we both must sleep, we spend the time before we have to separate discussing things like my team, the titans and the silly things playing on the TV that neither of us are watching. He listened to me when I was worried about how my team would react because for how much they annoy me I will miss them and I do feel guilty for them._

"_You can't always do what other people want, sometimes what other people need is for you to be there with them, for you to stay, for everything to stay the same. But… you can't do that when staying would mean destroying a chance for you to become who you need to be. Even if that means that some people get mad at you." He says with a look of determination that has such strong underlying notes of pain that I'm not even sure I should ask the next question._

"_You said you worked alone now… did you always?" I ask quietly. He winces and shakes his head at that._

"_I couldn't be just someone's sidekick, I couldn't be the kid anymore, despite the name." He says in a voice so honest that I just want to grab him into a hug. Which is surprising for me as I'm not a hug person._

"_But," he says looking at me suddenly, "I think you needed to do this. And I know it feels like it sucks now, like you've done something wrong, but if you didn't know that you needed to be away from them then you wouldn't have come with me at all." He says convincingly._

"_Does it get better?" I ask as I pull the duvet around me as I sit next to him._

"_Yeah, it does." He nods before standing up and stretching out his back, his muscles flex as he stretches up and I have to admit for the first time that I'm glad heroes wear spandex. I can see every valley and ridge in the topography of his well toned flesh and all the base part of my brain can think of is that it wants to see __**more**__. I shake the thought away, not wanting to make this day, this experience or this moment about lust._

"_Goodnight." He smiles down softly at me under his mask as he turns to go to his room._

"_Goodnight…" I trail off quietly. Suddenly the thought occurs, surely I can't just say 'goodnight kid flash', it's too... formal and wordy._

"_Wait!" I exclaim as his hand turns the handle to his door, he looks at me surprised._

"_What do I call you?" I ask him, he frowns a confused little frown at this._

"_You know my name already." He says looking at me as if I've hit my head and forgotten._

"_Duh. I want to know what you want me to call you. Flash? Kid?" I suggest._

"_Flash is my mentor, not me. And Kid… I'm not a kid anymore." He says with a morose sigh._

"_Then what do I call you?" I ask re-emphasising the question. He tilts his head to the side thoughtfully and a part of my brain thinks he looks like a dog when he does that, not in a nasty way but in an adorable intelligent way._

"_Kid Flash, say it really fast like it's all one word. KidFlash!" He grins wildly as he splays his fingers and almost does jazz-hands at the name, I laugh at this and a strange look comes over his face, his eyes go soft and he smiles yet he seems overwhelmed with some powerful feeling that I can't put my finger on, he opens his mouth as if to speak something impulsively. He seems to think better of it and simply smiles warmly at me._

"_Good night." He says again almost wistfully._

"_Good night Kid Flash." I say as I pronounce his name slightly faster, he chuckles to himself and closes the door behind him._

"Kid Flash." I breathe to myself in the quiet of the night as memories stir from dreams. His name now tastes bittersweet on my lips, such a light name should never have been weighed down with such painful memories with so few good ones to spare. I remember that night had been my first night with him, I remember dreaming of him though I forget what about. I wish I could say his name like I did then and feel all the good things I felt, but I can't. I take a look at my clock, it's only about one in the morning which makes it still early enough to go out and see some useful people. I'd said to Robin that I'd talk to my contacts but after everything that happened today with Speedy I never got to doing so. I hop out of bed and get dressed as Jinx rather than my civilian clothes and make a stealthy exit from the building resolute to not let certain people ruin my plans, I slide down the drain pipe and run off to the rough part of town.

I slink stealthily into a bar downtown that always has loud music and dark secluded tables, perfect for doing business in. I scan the room and smile as I see who I'm looking for. I slide into the empty seat next to him and regard him silently for a few seconds before he notices me there and jerks in shock.

"Jesus!" He yelps grabbing his chest.

"No, but a good guess." I grin at him in the dark, he looks around shiftily.

"I can't be seen with you, not after…" He trails off as he tries to stand up, but my foot is already hooked under his chair as he pulls it back to stand up, I jerk my foot towards me forcing him to sit back down again.

"You don't have any time for an old friend like me?" I ask sweetly with mock-hurt in my voice.

"I don't… you'll loose me business Jinx." He hisses nervously. I roll my eyes at this.

"It's the same as always, I just want a little information about your clients, just like I always did. And I'll still pay you for it. I'll not tell anyone this happened." I say reasonably, he still looks shifty but as always the mention of money stills him a little.

"How much?" He asks cautiously. I grin at him and fan out two hundred dollars in ten dollar bills, his eyes widen at this.

"Exactly how much information do you want?" He asks surprised.

"Not much, I just need to know if anyone's getting certain things from you or anyone else around here. I don't care what else they're getting as long as I can rule one thing out." I say putting the money back in my pocket.

"You wouldn't have paid for that before, you Titans must be rolling in it." He says slightly enviously.

"A little, but the Titans know that this is a bit of a risk for you and want to compensate you for your co-operation. Assuming you will co-operate of course." I say looking at him suspiciously. He rubs his temples looking stressed and then nods quickly at me.

"Is anyone getting parts for a lab that could produce clones? Proper chambers and DNA sequencers and that, the kind of things that you can't just cobble together, the kind of things you need to buy." I emphasise, he looks a little taken aback by this.

"Cloning? No, no one's asked me for… for anything like that, and I'm the one they come to for that sort of thing. And none of the other fixers have become suddenly flash with lots of cash like that…" He murmurs rubbing his chin.

"Except flash Harry of course, but then he's always like that. I really hope none of my clients have been cheating on me." He growls clenching his fists on the table top, I raise my eyebrow at the use of that term for this sort of relationship but I let it pass.

"I'll find out for you, it's in my interest as much as yours to know." He says hopping off of the barstool with a steely determined look on his face.

"Thanks." I smile at him, he waves over his shoulder at me as he makes his way across the bar. I sigh to myself and call Robin as I slip out of the bar and let him know that my contact is on it but at the moment it doesn't look like cloning.

I'm walking home in the dark when I hear fast pounding feet on the sidewalk behind me, I hear fast panting breath and the image of a certain red headed speedster bursts before my vision. Every muscle in my body tenses as a total stranger jogs past me, his breath misting in the air behind him as he runs. I close my eyes but I can still hear him breathing. I remember the sound of Kid Flash's breath when he held me in his arms once and sped me to the tower, I felt the thrumming of his hummingbird fast heart under my hands and the tickle of his panting breath on my cheek as he ran at hundreds of miles an hour. I clench my teeth and try to push the sensual memory out of my mind as I crush my fists together and twist the rings which changes the colour of my dress and alters my appearance totally, I let out a shuddery breath and try to calm down as I let my hair out of it's horns and ruffle it into a vague shape.

_Oh no I just keep on falling,_

_And where's hope when misery comes crawling?_

_With your faith you'll trigger a landslide_

_To kill off this common sense of mind_

_Paramore – born for this_

Kid Flash

I sit leaning against the door to my apartment still, I check my watch, I've been out here for three hours. I don't have my costume with me, my phone is inside and I can't break in with my powers because it would raise questions and none of my neighbours are in to help me. I bang my head frustratedly against the door, how could I have been so careless as to lock myself out? My titan's communicator is in there too! I clasp my hands together and squeeze my eyes shut.

"Hey God, I know we've had a rocky relationship with me being an atheist what with you killing my parents and making me an orphan at ten and all but I'm super tired and desperate so if you could just find some way to let me into my apartment that would be swell. Oh and fixing my relationship with Jinx would be nice, but I suppose you're meant to be selfless in prayers huh? Then… make it so she's happy, but preferably not with some other guy right now, because that'd make me miserable. But if she does move on then if you could send me something that would help me do so too that'd be great. So… in summary, let me into my apartment and help me and Jinx." I finish as I let my hands fall and open my eyes. I look around, Jinx hasn't appeared to take me back and I still don't have a key. I roll my eyes, what exactly did I expect? I close my eyes again and bang my head against the door repeatedly and groan.

"Are… you okay?" A female voice asks warily. I look up startled to see the black haired girl that lives opposite me looking down distrustfully at me, as if she thinks I'm a crazy person, but then I have just been banging my head against the door and talking to myself so I can't blame her.

"Oh! Yes, I am… sort of. I'm locked out." I say gesturing to the door behind me and smiling up at her nervously.

"You fight with your parents or something?" She asks shifting her laundry basket in her arms.

"Nope, I live alone. I was just dumb enough to shut the door without my keys and without my phone. And all of my neighbours seem to have disappeared so I can't use their phones to call a locksmith." I explain standing up.

"I can get you in." She says putting her basket down and rummaging in her hair.

"You can?" I ask the elation clear in my voice, she smiles slightly at this.

"Yeah, it's not that hard. Just promise me that this is your actual apartment and you're not breaking in." She says eyeing me suspiciously with her elegant deep brown eyes.

"You caught me," I say holding my hands up, "you discovered my fiendish scheme to wait outside other people's apartments waiting for strange pretty girls that can pick locks to help me in."

She laughs slightly at that and kneels before the lock in my door with her hair slide in her hand, she puts the slide into the lock and wiggles it carefully. I watch her as she works, she is quite pretty up close when she doesn't look startled or angry because I've knocked her over. And since that day it's the closest I've been to her aside from watching her occasionally through my window. Her long dark lashes flutter as she blinks and I'm surprised to find that I'm quite attracted to her, this has to be the first time I've thought a girl was genuinely attractive since I saw Jinx for the first time, the realisation shocks me so much that I only realise that she's unlocked the door when it swings open from under my hand.

"Wow… thanks. I thought that only worked in movies." I murmur as I look back at her as she deftly replaces the slide in her long black hair.

"That's what they want you to think." She smiles slightly as she scoops her basket up and turns to leave. I jump at this and rush to lean out to door where she's already starting to make her way down the corridor.

"Hey! Don't you want to come in for a drink or anything, I should thank you." I call after her, she stops and looks at me with puzzlement on her face.

"I'm fine, thanks." She says shaking her head and turning again. I swear under my breath and grab my keys this time from the table by the door and dash after her.

"I mean it, thank you. And I'm sorry about before." I say grabbing her shoulder, she jumps slightly at my touch and looks up at me, her face startled at first, but then it turns in to an almost contemptuous smile.

"So you do remember knocking me over then." She says with that smile still in place, I wince under her gaze which seems to give her some satisfaction as her smile softens some.

"Yes, and I'm really sorry. It's just that by boss called me that day and said that if I didn't get my ass over to the other side of town in five minutes he would fire me, so I ran." I explain hastily, I see her calculate the distance mentally and her eyes widen as she looks at me.

"That's pretty far, your boss must be a jerk." She says simply.

"He's... okay, but he has his moments." I mutter irritatedly. I'm happy that I got the chance to talk to her and explain myself as I'd not run into her yet, what with her living on the other side of the building and everything. I pause at that thought, if she lives on the other side of the building, which I know she does as I've seen her in her room, what's she doing wandering around my side of the building late at night? I'm about to ask her what she's doing over here before I realise that blurting out that I know where she lives and can see into her room might come off as a little stalker-ish.

"I was hoping I'd run into you sooner to apologise, but I've not bumped into you before now." I say carefully.

"Oh, I live over the other side of the building, I've never been down here before." She replies with a shrug.

"Oh? So what brings you over?" I ask brimming with curiosity.

"It's the weirdest thing, when I left my half of the building to come over to the laundry room the door up to my side was just fine but when I got back just a few minutes later there was this sign on it saying it was out of order and it was locked too. Then it started raining all of a sudden so I rushed in here and figured I'd take the long way around inside to get back." She explains.

"That… is weird." I say surprised.

"I know. Anyway… it's getting late so I'd better…" She says trailing of and gesturing down the hallway.

"Oh! Of course, and thanks again for your help." I smile warmly at her, after a hesitant second she returns my smile with just as much warmth in it.

"Just remember to keep your keys with you!" She calls over her shoulder as she walks around the corner.

"Will do!" I laugh and shout after her. I smile to myself as I walk back to my room feeling amazed at my luck that she'd wander down here with the skills to get me into my apartment and, I realise as I open my door, that she was pretty enough and interesting enough that I didn't compare her every feature to Jinx like I have every other girl that I've seen since her that's been even marginally attractive. I smile, I guess things are looking up. I pause as I shut the door and look skyward.

"That proves nothing, that could have just been a coincidence." I say to my ceiling.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: hey, i know it's been a while since i updated this, but i just suddenly got attacked by plot bunnies for this again. so, enjoy.

_All my life I've been searching for something  
Something never comes never leads to nothing  
Nothing satisfies but I'm getting close  
Closer to the prize at the end of the rope_

_Foo fighters – all my life_

**Jinx**

I managed to find a nice bar near my place, it's small and cosy and the TV is on the news which makes me feel a little better about being here rather than at the Tower, at least I can feign that I've been keeping my ears open for more cases of duplicated villains. The thought suddenly occurs to me that if Billy Numerous were cloned no one would ever know about it. The thought tugs a smile to my lips.

During the day the bar is more of a café type of place, I don't know what the rest of the food is like but they do good sandwiches and some pretty fancy virgin cocktails that taste good too. A flash of tell tale red in my peripheral vision makes me jerk my head up and I see the boy that ran into me before lean against the bar, I don't know if he's seen me sitting in the corner of the room in a booth and I'm not sure that I want him to. After him running into me and his bright red hair I'd resolved that he was far too much like Kid Flash and that I was going to stay well clear of him. But then I ran into him locked outside his apartment and I guess my charitable hero side came out and I unlocked it for him. But he didn't seem much like Kid Flash, he was… quiet for one thing. And he seemed sweet too. But all the same I really shouldn't have anything to do with him.

He's talking to the bartender now and as the conversation ends and the bartender shuffles along to get his order he stretches and looks around the room. His eyes land on me and I curse myself for looking at him as he looked at me. A flash of recognition crosses his face and it breaks into an easy smile, he quickly thrusts a hand into his pocket and I wonder what he's doing until he pulls out a set of keys and gives me a silly look as if to reassure me that he's not locked himself out again. I smirk at that and go back to my sketchpad.

I see his shoes approach in my peripheral vision, converses, and if they'd have been red I probably would have screamed. But they're not. They're a faded denim colour. So when he smiles at me and asks if he can sit down in the same booth I don't tell him no like I'd resolved to.

"It's a free bar." I shrug nonchalantly.

"I wish." He chuckles and slides his slim frame in onto the bench opposite me. I try to ignore him whilst simultaneously studying him through my hair. He does bear more than a passing resemblance to Kid Flash. That hair for a start is the exact same colour, and his nose is identical, I catch a small glance at his lips as he starts to speak and yes, they too are like his. I like this situation less and less.

"So, you've lived here for, what a day or two now? And you've already figured out the best places to hang out, I'm impressed." He smiles with shiny white teeth. Like his.

I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, he is too much like him. I hate this.

"Um, thanks for letting me in last night by the way. Well, this morning really I guess. I was really stuck until you came along and I appreciate it." He mumbles rubbing the back of his neck nervously. My spine straightens with a snap. This guy is coming in here wearing a face that looks so much like Kid Flash's but yet acting nothing like him. It occurs to me that Kid Flash wouldn't have asked to sit, he just would have done it, and he certainly wouldn't be sitting here being gracious and rubbing his neck like a nervous schoolboy.

"No problem." I reply feeling slightly stunned. He looks back up at me with a thankful smile and his hair falls in his eyes. It's floppy hair, overgrown and unkempt, very much unlike Kid Flash's controlled backward pointing spikes. His eyes are the same shade of course, but they seem… softer. He looks like someone shy. I decide to ask his name before my brain sticks him with the label of anti-flash and I run the risk of calling him that to his face.

"I didn't get your name before." I say feeling nowhere near as tactful as I'd thought I would.

"Wally." He smiles at me.

Wally. His name is Wally. That's about the least Kid Flash like name I could have possibly picked. Wally is not a name that screams danger, it doesn't hint of excitement or naughtiness or hidden thrills. Wally makes me think of…

"Like the little robot?" I blurt out. His head suddenly thunks against the tabletop and he lets out a pained groan.

"That stupid film." He moans unhappily.

"I'm sorry!" I apologise unable to hide my laughter, "it's just he's so…" I try,

"Cute. Yes, I know. Not exactly what I was going for." He grumbles resting his chin on his forearm.

"Still," he continues, "it's better than the whole 'where's wally' thing. The number of times I got asked about where my stripy shirt was, I swear."

I try not to laugh. Unfortunately I fail. It's not just the poor boy's name history that makes me giggle but putting all that Kid Flash is next to this awkward silly guy is just ridiculous.

"Enough laughing at me, what about you then? What should I call you?" He says sitting up suddenly and arching a messy red eyebrow at me.

"Djinn." I answer watching his face carefully. His brows nit together in confusion.

"Run that by me again?" He asks tentatively. I repeat myself slightly more slowly.

"That's… very…" He tries.

"If you say 'exotic' I will have to kill you." I warn him as I raise my pencil threateningly.

"I was going with unusual, but okay. How do you spell that?" He says holding his hands up defensively. I wince slightly, Kid Flash used to do that a lot. I shove the feeling aside and write my name down for him, he looks at it and still looks confused.

"I'll bite, what does it mean? And where's it from?" He asks looking curiously at me.

"It's a word, a Djinn a legendary creature." I answer.

"Like… unicorns?" He ventures sounding surprised. I laugh at this.

"Hah, no. More like… I suppose the closest thing would be genies. But more complicated than the wish granting Aladdin type thing. They're made of fire apparently and some have magic. According to the stories anyway." I explain quickly.

"Magic eh? So, do they use their magic powers for good then? Or bad?" He asks with an interested smile.

"Supposedly they're like us, they can be good or evil." I answer trying to watch his reactions to see if he's making fun of me.

"That's pretty cool. You have quite and awesome name, you should be proud." He grins at me. He tries my name out a few times, rolling it around his mouth to test it out and asking if he's saying it right. He is, which impresses me. My landlord tried once and then decided to call me 'genie' because it was easier, I guess some people just can't be bothered.

I start drawing again and I notice that he doesn't try to peek like most people do, like Kid Flash did. Instead he's alternating between tilting his head to see the news every so often and eating his bowl of chilli. Suddenly I see all of the muscles in his neck snap taut and I notice that he's glaring the TV to death, I look up to see that horrible superhero gossip section of the news.

"I hate that section." I mutter irritatedly.

"Me too." He agrees, his lip curling into a slight snarl at the TV. He glowers at it a little more and turns back to me.

"It's so… degrading. It's not even news, it's just nasty vicious gossip." He says vehemently and stabs his fork into his chilli a little too violently. The piece is on speculation about how much else of Bumblebee is insect and if it means that she technically counts as human or not.

"I don't watch it." I state and look back at my sketchpad and shade a little. I hear him laugh quietly.

"Yeah, I thought I saw your friends drop your TV out of the window when you were moving in." He says trying to hide his smile.

"Yeah. I guess I don't watch anything for that matter really." I concede. It's not like I can tell him that in fact it was me that threw that TV out of the open window when that spiteful segment about Kid Flash and I came on and I lost my temper.

I sketch a little more, the men at the bar prove excellent subjects, they sit very still as they drink which makes it much simpler to capture the details about them. I guess Wally follows my gaze as he suddenly asks a little to loudly if I'm drawing the men at the bar.

"Shh!" I hiss, "you wanna shout that a little louder? I'm not sure they heard you!"

He has the decency to look embarrassed and he sinks a little against the seat of the booth and chances a glance at the men at the bar who apparently didn't hear him after all.

"Sorry." He apologizes quietly, "I didn't mean to look, I know some artists are… funny about being watched when they draw."

I look at him for a moment, he's looking down with his hair hanging in his eyes and his fingers absently and perhaps nervously tracing patterns in the condensation on his cold glass. Part of me just wants to show him because he was well mannered enough to know that he shouldn't look and part of me also just wants to show him because he's _not Kid Flash_. Which is dumb, it's silly to reward someone for not being someone else. All the same I turn my sketchpad towards him and slide it across the table slightly to him.

"Are you sure?" He asks, his impossibly blue eyes widening in surprise. I manage to sort of nod and shrug at the same time.

He cautiously picks up my sketchpad as if it might be a trap still and then holds it gently and looks down at it. He tilts his head to look at the men at the bar and then back at my drawing.

"You're really good." He breathes softly with a little awe in his voice. A little bit of pride flutters in my chest at that. He turns the page back carefully, almost reverently and looks at my other sketches. I suddenly feel silly showing him my stupid little doodles and I have the childish urge to snatch it back and hide it in embarrassment. But the look of interest and wonder openly on his face still my hands. His eyes seem to drink in every detail with each new page that he turns and suddenly a smile flashes on his face.

"That's my room." He smiles turning the pad in his hands to face me and pointing out a particular window where the curtains were open, I remember drawing that room, it was the only window that the curtains were open to and it acted as a nice challenge to draw.

"I guess then that you live… pretty much directly opposite me." He smiles handing it back to me. My face reddens, I'd not meant to draw his room and show it to him. I didn't even know.

"I didn't know, I suppose I should have thought about it when I saw where you lived but…" I mutter shutting it and shoving it in my bag as I feel my face heat up more.

"Heh, don't worry about it. But," he says suddenly serious again, "you are very _very_ good. Do you do art for a living? Like sell paintings and stuff?"

My eyes widen at that. Do art for a living? SELLING STUFF? No way could I do that. I just doodle, sometimes I doodle unicorns. I shake my head vigorously.

"Really? Could have fooled me. I'd buy your stuff." He shrugs taking a sip of his drink. I narrow my eyes at that, either he's mocking me or he's trying to flatter me, I don't like either option. Mocking me is nasty and flattering me is something that Kid Flash would have done.

"Don't be stupid." I grumble feeling annoyed at him.

"I'm not just saying that, believe me. When you tell people they're good at something they're not all you end up with is loads of rubbish stuff and eventually hurt feelings. I knew a girl who wanted to do fashion, I tried to tell her that she was good to be kind and I ended up being forced to wear loads of really ugly shirts." He says with a shudder.

"I don't say good things if I don't mean them." He adds with emphasis. My nerves calm a little, I guess I buy his story. Maybe he just has honest eyes.

_I never thought I'd miss you half as much as I do,_

_and I never thought I'd feel this way,_

_the way I feel, about you,_

_as soon as I wake up, every night, every day,_

_I know that it's you I need to take the blues away,_

_it must be love, love love._

_Madness - it must be love_

**Kid Flash**

Djinn jerks suddenly and then lifts her hips in her seat to retrieve her phone from her pocket, she shoots me an apologetic look and flicks it open.

"Hello?" She asks with her long fingers over her other ear to drown out the noise of the TV which is currently making gunfire sounds. She's undeniably pretty, as much as I didn't want to admit it. I think that she also looks really different to Jinx, which startles me when I realise that this is the first time I'd thought of Jinx the whole time that I've been in the bar. I feel guilty for a moment for finding her pretty but then decide better of it, wasn't this what I'd asked for? Something to take my mind of Jinx? Something to stop the pain of thinking about her?

Thinking by myself clearly hadn't been working, but talking to this girl about her, about her life, about her art… it worked. It made me feel better again. That's what I wanted wasn't it? I find myself filled with doubt, I want Jinx back, not some other girl. But then Djinn is nice, and she doesn't seem to be as tense as Jinx always was. Jinx was always hard work, sometimes conversation with her was easier but I always had to keep on my toes to make sure that I didn't spook her, especially when she first came back to the apartment with me. But Djinn… she's more easygoing, she seems happier than Jinx somehow. I kick myself mentally for that, love isn't supposed to be easy or convenient. And I do love Jinx, I know I do. My attention snaps back to her as she's talking on the phone.

"No, no. Look, just… hold it okay? I'll be right over, so don't kill each other before then, got it?" She says scrunching her big brown eyes shut and pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Okay, bye." She says tightly and snaps the phone shut.

"Problem?" I ask with a small laugh. She looks up at me as if she'd almost forgotten that I was there and grins nervously.

"Just a bit. Two of my best friends are complete opposites to each other, they really care for each other but it seems like they can't agree on anything. Think goth girl and cheerleader. I'm their person in the middle, goodness knows how they survived before I came along." She laughs as she slips her phone in her back pocket.

"I know the type." I laugh, my mind calls up Starfire and Raven's constant misunderstandings and think how glad I am that I'm not stuck between two opposites like that. All I have is Robin, although I suppose that he and I are pretty opposite.

"My best buddy and I are a bit like that I guess. He tells me that I drive him nuts, but I think that he needs to be shaken up now and then, he's too much of a stick in the mud if I'm not there." I grin resolving to stop by Titan's tower later to annoy bird boy.

"I pity anyone stuck between the pair of you then." She laughs lightly. And suddenly I find myself drawn to her again, she's so much easier to talk to than Jinx and… god, this is not a good idea.

"I gotta go, stopping world war three before it happens and all that." Djinn says sliding easily out of her seat and tucking her sketchpad into her bag.

"Good luck." I reply weakly. She smiles at me one last time and then turns to walk out of the door, I watch her leave. She's slim, like Jinx, but the angles of her body don't seem so sharp; she seems… softer entirely. Her hair is gentle instead of pointed horns, her eyes are warm rather than sharp, and she seems so… I don't know… different.

I bang my head on the table and groan, I'm in love with Jinx, no matter how different and pretty this girl is, she isn't Jinx. That's who I should be with right now. I nod to myself and decide to get back to my apartment, change and go straight to the tower.

To his credit Robin doesn't yelp when I run into his room at seventy miles an hour and kick the back of his computer chair. He instead groans and turns his chair around to face me. I'm sat on his bed grinning at him in the way that I know drives him mad.

"What?" He asks wearily.

"Is-" I start to ask but Robin quickly holds up a gloved hand to silence me.

"No, she is not here. No, I will not tell you where she is. Anything else or can I get back to work?" Robin says flatly.

"God, I'm not that predictable, I was going to ask you something else." I sigh lying and rolling my eyes at him.

"Yes you were, and everyone's predictable. You are especially so." Robin retorts leaning back in his chair and resting his steel boots of the frame of his bed. I don't really have any sort of witty retort to that so I settle for sticking my tongue out at Robin, he looks at me blankly with a slight air of disinterest. A conversation topic pops into my head, on impulse I decide to ask Robin.

"So, I was talking to this girl today-" I start to say when Robin suddenly jerks up in his chair and stares wide eyed at me.

"What? No, no, no!" Robin says emphatically waving his hands in front of him.

"I- what? No, it's not like that. She's just a girl I know!" I protest. Robin quickly spins back to his desk, rolls up a file and whaps me on the top of the head with it.

"Bad Kid Flash, BAD." Robin says smacking me on the head with every word.

"Gettoff! I'm not gonna do anything dumb, okay?" I insist, shoving him away.

"I've heard that one before. Do I need to get a squirt bottle? You're like a bad puppy, an exceptionally stupid bad puppy." He says leaning back in his chair and glowering at me.

"Are you going to let me finish my story?" I ask rubbing my now sore head.

"No." He states flatly and looks away from me.

"Thank you," I respond, taking this to be a yes, "so, she said that she had these two friends. Total polar opposites. She's sort of stuck between them and she says that she has no idea how they were friends before she came along to balance them out."

Robin stares at me for a while before raising an eyebrow at me.

"And?" He asks looking at me.

"I… we don't have anyone like that." I say staring down at my red boots.

"You've lost me." Robin says rubbing his forehead in the way that he tends to when he's got a stress headache coming on.

"You and I, we're total opposites. Why are… why are you friends with me?" I mutter, staring at the ground. I know why I'm friends with Robin, I always have. He's strong and reliable and he thinks that the world is worth protecting despite all that has happened to him. But me? I've no idea why he keeps me around.

"You actually asking or…" he says with the added '_just asking for an ego stroke' _hangs in the air. I continue staring at my boots, they could probably use cleaning actually. I rub at a patch of dirt on my right boot with my thumb. Robin sighs.

"We're not opposites dummy. You're smart, smarter than you pretend to be. You've got a good heart and you do what's right, even if it's hard. And sure, you make your fair share of mistakes, but you do try to fix them when you make them. Mostly. Even if it doesn't always work." Robin said rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Hey!" I start protesting until I see the smirk tugging at the edge of his lips.

"Besides, we balance each other out, I try to stop you being so impulsive and you stop me…" Robin trails off searching for the word.

"Having such a stick stuck up your ass? Being the centre of boringsville? Being a giant stick in the mud all the time?" I suggest innocently. Robin glares at me half heartedly. Suddenly I hear Jinx's voice along with Starfire's and Raven's going past Robin's door.

"And speaking of fixing my mistakes!" I grin jumping up and opening the door.

"And speaking of that not working…" I hear Robin mutter as I go out the door and down the hallway after Jinx.


End file.
